HSS Courses (2018-19)

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Among the major events, trends, and problems of our country's history are the American Revolution, the framing and development of the Constitution, wars, slavery and emancipation, ethnic and gender relations, immigration, urbanization, westward conquest, economic fluctuations, changes in the sizes and functions of governments, foreign relations, class conflicts, domestic violence, and social and political movements. Although no one course can treat all of these themes, each freshman American history course will deal with two or more of them. How have American historians approached them? What arguments and evidence have scholars offered for their interpretations and how can we choose between them? In a word, what can we know about our heritage?

Instructor: Kousser

Wr 1
Introduction to Academic Writing for Multilingual Writers

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course offers a focused introduction to the practices of reading, thinking, and writing that characterize academic writing. More specifically, the course teaches students how to articulate a position, situate writing within specific contexts, engage with the work of others, locate and provide convincing evidence, and understand the expectations of different types of academic readers. Additionally, this course focuses on the challenges of academic writing that can be especially demanding for multilingual writers, including mastery of Academic English, understanding American academic conventions regarding citation and plagiarism, and being comfortable with American academic readers' expectations regarding argumentation and evidence. Students will take several writing projects through multiple stages of revision, improving their work with feedback from seminar discussions, workshops, and frequent one-to-one conferences with the instructor. Students are placed in Wr 1 based on a writing assessment that is required of all incoming students; successful completion of the course is required before taking freshman humanities courses. Enrolled students may be required to take Wr 3, 4, and/or 50 in subsequent quarters.

Instructor: Hall

Wr 2
Introduction to Academic Writing

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course offers a focused introduction to the practices of reading, thinking, and writing that characterize academic writing. More specifically, the course teaches students how to articulate a position, situate writing within specific contexts, engage with the work of others, locate and provide convincing evidence, and understand the expectations of different types of academic readers. Students will take several writing projects through multiple stages of revision, improving their work with feedback from seminar discussions, workshops, and frequent one-to-one conferences with the instructor. Students are placed in Wr 2 based on a writing assessment that is required of all incoming students; successful completion of the course is required before taking freshman humanities courses. Enrolled students may be required to take Wr 3, 4, and/or 50 in subsequent quarters.

Instructor: Daley

Hum/H 3
The United States in the Twentieth Century

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Designed to introduce students to the academic study of history, this course examines key issues and events that shaped the political, social, and cultural history of the United States in the Twentieth Century. Through a wide variety of historical sources-including primary documents, fiction, and music-students will explore issues such as popular culture, immigration and labor, the civil rights movement, political realignment, and American intervention abroad.

Instructor: Savage

Wr 3
Reading and Composing Academic Writing

9 units (1-0-8) | second term

This course builds on Wr 1 or 2 for students who need additional instruction in both the core concepts and practices of academic writing before beginning their freshman humanities coursework. The course will focus on developing critical reading skills and composing successful academic essays. By taking several writing projects through multiple stages of revision, students will develop a deeper sense of their strengths and limitations as writers, and seminar discussions, workshops, and frequent one-to-one conferences with the instructor will equip students to address those limitations. Not available for credit toward the humanities-social science requirement. Enrolled students may be required to take Wr 4 and/or 50 in subsequent quarters.

Instructor: Daley

Wr 4
Principles and Practices of Academic Writing

3 units (1-0-2) | second term

Taken simultaneously with a freshman humanities course, this course offers weekly discussion of core concepts in academic writing. By focusing on the diverse scenes, situations, and genres of academic writing, the course aims to support writers both in their concurrent work writing in humanistic disciplines and to connect that learning to writing tasks that students will encounter in other academic locations. Not available for credit toward the humanities-social science requirement. Enrolled students also take Wr 50.

Instructor: Hall

Hum/H 5
The History of the Chinese Empire

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This class will explore several facets of how the concept of empire and its historical formation in China was defined, portrayed, and developed over time. It offers students a chance to reflect on the interaction of event, record, and remembrance as these components combine in the creation and contestation of history. This course will particularly emphasize how the making, writing, and remembering of history responds to the advent of different regimes of legitimacy in order to give students a new perspective on the relationship between action, authorship, and interpretation in history.

Instructor: Dykstra

Hum/H 8 a
Civilization, Science, and Archaeology: Before Greece: The Origins of Civilization in Mesopotamia

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will introduce students to the early development of civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt from 4000 B.C.E. through 1000 B.C.E. Origins of agriculture and writing, the evolution of the city, and the structures of the Mesopotamian economy and social order will be discussed. Comparison with contemporary developments in Egypt during the Old and Middle Kingdoms may include a reading of Gilgamesh from 3000 B.C.E. and of the Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe. The course concludes with a discussion of life during the late Bronze Age. Focus will be on life as it was lived and experienced by many groups in pre-classical antiquity rather than on kings and dynasties.

Instructor: Buchwald

Hum/H 8 b
Civilization, Science, and Archaeology: The Development of Science from Babylon through the Renaissance

9 units (3-0-6) | second and third terms

Connections in antiquity between astrology and astronomy, early theories of light, Islamic science, new concepts of knowledge during the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, the early laboratory, the development of linear perspective, the origins of the Copernican and Keplerian systems of astronomy, and the science of Galileo. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Buchwald

Hum/H 8 c
Civilization, Science, and Archaeology: The Nature of Religious Belief in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Israel

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

The civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia gave rise to complex forms of religious practices connected to the social order, moral behavior, and the afterlife. The course examines the origins of concepts of moral death and of sin as a violation of cosmic order in antiquity, the nature of polytheism, and the manner in which monotheism arose out of it. In addition to historical analyses the course includes readings by anthropologists who have studied cult structures as well as contemporary theories by evolutionary psychologists. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum/H 9 a
European Civilization: The Classical and Medieval Worlds

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Will survey the evolution of Mediterranean and European civilization from antiquity through the end of the Middle Ages. It will emphasize the reading and discussion of primary sources, especially but not exclusively literary works, against the backdrop of the broad historical narrative of the periods. The readings will present students with the essential characteristics of various ancient and medieval societies and give students access to those societies' cultural assumptions and perceptions of change. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum/H 9 b
European Civilization: Early Modern Europe

9 units (3-0-6) | second and third terms

Will survey the evolution of European civilization from the 14th century to the early 19th century. The topics covered will depend on the individual instructor, but they will include some of the major changes that transformed Western civilization in the early modern period, such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the rise of sovereign states and the concomitant military revolution, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, and the French and industrial revolutions. Readings will include major works from the period, as well as studies by modern historians.

Instructors: Hoffman, Wey-Gomez

Hum/H 9 c
European Civilization: Modern Europe

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Will introduce students to major aspects of the politics and culture of modernity that have profoundly transformed Western society and consciousness from the French Revolution to the contemporary era. A variety of historical, literary, and artistic works will be used to illuminate major social, intellectual, and cultural movements. The focus will be on significant and wide-ranging historical change (e.g., the industrial revolution, imperialism, socialism, fascism); on cultural innovation (e.g., modernism, impressionism, cubism); and on the work of significant thinkers.

Instructor: Kormos-Buchwald

Hum/H 10
Medieval Europe: The Problem of Violence

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will explore how people understood violence in Europe between ca. 500 and ca. 1400 AD. It will focus on the various norms that governed the use of violence in a period when the right of free people to carry and use weapons was considered self-evident. Working through primary sources, students will explore the relationship between violence and vengeance, the law, central authority and public order, religion, emotions, public ritual, and economics. As they go along students will consider whether violence can coexist with or even promote stable, ordered societies, or whether it by definition creates disorder.

Instructor: Brown

Ec 11
Introduction to Economics

9 units (3-2-4) | first, second terms

An introduction to economic methodology, models, and institutions. Includes both basic microeconomics and an introduction to modern approaches to macroeconomic issues. Students are required to participate in economics experiments.

Instructors: Plott, Rangel

Hum/H 11
Love and Death: Using Demography to Study the History of Europe from 1700

9 units (3-0-6) | first, third terms

Demographic events-births, marriages, deaths-have always been highly responsive to changes in the local environment. Decisions about when to marry, how many children to have, or what kind of household to live in have always been closely correlated to decisions people take in other areas of their lives and, as a result, can tell us a great deal about the economic, social, and cultural worlds people inhabit. This course examines differences in demographic trends in Europe across space and time, from 1700 to the present, as well as existing explanations for these differences, including political economic factors, social and cultural norms, biology and disease environments. Some topics include: the demographic effects of war, industrialization, and urbanization; changes related to the emergence of reliable contraceptive technologies; changes related to the expansion of economic opportunities for women; the effects of government policies on demographic decisions.

Instructor: Dennison

PS 12
Introduction to Political Science

9 units (3-0-6) | first, third terms

Introduction to the tools and concepts of analytical political science. Subject matter is primarily American political processes and institutions. Topics: spatial models of voting, redistributive voting, games, presidential campaign strategy, Congress, congressional-bureaucratic relations, and coverage of political issues by the mass media.

Instructors: Ordeshook, Kiewiet

Psy 13
Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will provide an introduction to what we know about the fascinating link between the brain, the mind, and behavior. We will start with a basic review of the brain as a biological organ, its evolution, development, and its basic operations including visual and others senses. Next, we will discuss how the brain gives rise to a wide variety of complex behaviors, memory, social and emotional behaviors. The course will finally introduce students to the wider neurophilosophical questions concerning freewill, death and morality.

Instructor: Mobbs

An 14
Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology

9 units (3-0-6); second term | Introduction

to anthropological theory. Exploration of the diversity of human culture. Examination of the relationship between ecology, technology, and subsistence, patterns of marriage and residence, gender and sexual division of labor, reproduction, kinship, and descent. Links between economic complexity, population, social stratification, political organization, law, religion, ritual, and warfare are traced. Ethnic diversity and interethnic relations are surveyed. The course is oriented toward understanding the causes of cross-cultural variation and the evolution of culture.

Instructor: Ensminger

An 15
Human Evolution

9 units (3-0-6); first term. Introduction to human evolution, which is essential for understanding our species. Natural selection, sexual selection, genetics, systematics, behavioral ecology, and life history theory are covered. The order Primates is surveyed. Primary emphasis is on the hominid fossil and archeological record. Behavior, cognition, and culture of nonhuman primates and humans, as well as physical variation in present-day humans, are examined. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum/H/HPS 18
Introduction to the History of Science

9 units (3-0-6) | second, third terms

Major topics include the following: What are the origins of modern Western science, when did it emerge as distinct from philosophy and other cultural and intellectual productions, and what are its distinguishing features? When and how did observation, experiment, quantification, and precision enter the practice of science? What were some of the major turning points in the history of science? What is the changing role of science and technology? Using primary and secondary sources, students will take up significant topics in the history of science, from ancient Greek science to the 20th-century revolution in physics, biology, and technology. Hum/H/HPS 10 may be taken for credit toward the additional 36-unit HSS requirement by HPS majors and minors who have already fulfilled their freshman humanities requirement and counts as a history course in satisfying the freshman humanities breadth requirement.

Instructor: Feingold

Hum/En 20
Greek Epic and Drama

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second terms

The epic poems attributed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Athenian drama of the fifth and early fourth centuries BCE have been masterpieces of the western literary tradition for thousands of years. We will study one or both epics, tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and comedies by Aristophanes.

Instructor: Pigman

PS 20
Political-Economic Development and Material Culture

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

During the 19th-century the American economy, despite the Civil War, caught up to and surpassed all European economies. How did the likes of Singer, John Deere and Seth Thomas -- latecomers to the markets they served-come to dominate those markets both domestically and internationally? Why did the technology of interchangeable parts and mass production become known as 'the American system' when much of that technology was imported from Europe? What role did government play in facilitating or thwarting innovation and economic growth? This course will explore such questions as reflected in the ordinary things people collect under the label 'antiques'. What do we learn from the fact that we can document a half dozen American manufacturers of apple peelers but not a single comparable European company? Why is the hand sewn quilt a nearly unique American folk art form and what does the evolution of quilting patterns tell us about technology and economic prosperity? What do baking powder cans as a category of collectible tell us about the politics of federal versus state regulation? Students will be expected to each choose a topic that asks such questions and to explore possible answers, all with an eye to understanding the interplay of economics, politics, and demography.

Instructor: Ordeshook

Hum/En 21
The Marvelous and the Monstrous: Literature at the Boundaries of the Real

9 units (3-0-6) | second, third terms

Marvels flourish at the boundaries of literary invention, religious belief, and scientific inquiry, challenging assumptions about natural processes and expected outcomes. From Grendel, the monstrous foe of Beowulf, to Satan, Milton's charismatic antihero, this seminar examines the uses of the marvelous in a variety of texts and genres, including Shakespearian drama, medieval romance, and early travel-writing. Readings may include Beowulf, Marie de France, Chaucer, John Mandeville, Shakespeare, Milton.

Instructor: Jahner

Hum/En 22
Inequality

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Throughout the history of Europe, America, and beyond, poets and philosophers have asked hard questions about unequal relationships, whether between kings and subjects, gods and humans, men and women, rich and poor, or machines and people. Our authors take no single point of view; our goal is to analyze sophisticated and often surprising arguments and to enter new cultural worlds. Readings may include Ovid, Milton, Sei Shonagon, Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Alexievich.

Instructor: Haugen

Hum/En 23
Literature and Medicine

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

The relationship between patients and doctors, the ill and the well, involves a constant exchange of stories. In this course we will look more closely at the relationship between medicine and narrative through a selection of fiction, essays and poems that investigate the interplay between doubt and diagnosis, the idea of the case study, the problem of medical responsibility, and the language of pain and illness. Authors covered may include Sontag, Mantel, Conan Doyle, Freud, Woolf, Dickinson, Ishiguro and Shelley.

Instructor: Gilmore

Hum/En 24
The Scientific Imagination in English Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course considers three periods of major scientific development-the Renaissance, the nineteenth century, and the modern period- to explore the influence new ideas, discoveries, and theories had on the imagination of English writers. We will look at the early modern interplay between magic and science, Romantic and Victorian debates about evolution, and the twentieth-century advent of modern physics as we confront consistent tropes like the mad scientist, the scientist-hero, and the problem of uncertainty. Authors covered may include Shakespeare, Marlowe, Bacon, Shelley, Darwin, Conan Doyle, Stevenson, Auden, McEwan, and Stoppard.

Instructor: Gilmore

Psy 25
Reading and Research in Psychology

Units to be determined by the instructor

Not available for credit toward humanities-social science requirement. Written report required. Graded pass/fail. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum/En 26
Encountering Difference in Medieval Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | first, third terms

Encountering those who are different from us can be both exciting and challenging, obliging us to reevaluate the boundaries that separate ourselves from others. In this course, we will consider how religious, ethnic, cultural and other categories have been used to differentiate between self and other, the relationship between violence and difference, and the role that language itself plays in constructing narratives of difference. Readings may include Chaucer, The Travels of Ibn Battutah, The Book of Margery Kempe, medieval popular romances, eyewitness accounts of the Crusades, and the writings of early explorers.

Instructor: Klement

Hum/En 29
Dream Narratives

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Dream narratives reveal as much about cultural beliefs and superstitions as they do about techniques of narration and interpretation. This course investigates key developments in the literature on dreams and dream interpretations during a time period when they were subjected to competing religious and scientific interpretations. Examples will focus on the time period between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and will include texts by Descartes, Calderon, Shakespeare, and Diderot.

Instructor: Holland

Hum/En 33
Modern Metamorphoses

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Narratives of metamorphosis have traditionally used their dramatic subject matter-a radical change of form-as a vehicle for social criticism. This course explores the ways in which twentieth-century writers experiment with the concept of metamorphosis to take on the most pressing political and social issues of their day, including slavery, women's rights, and critiques of capitalist excess. Readings to include Kafka, Garnett, Orwell, Tawada, and Erpenbeck.

Instructor: Holland

Hum/En 35
Major British Authors

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course will introduce students to one or more of the genres of English literature, including poetry, drama, and prose fiction, by studying major authors from different periods. Sometimes the course will cover a wide range of authors, while at others it will concentrate on a few. Authors might include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Austen, George Eliot, or Joyce. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum/En 36
American Literature and Culture

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Studies of American aesthetics, genres, and ideas from the birth of the nation to the present. Students will be introduced to the techniques of formal analysis. We will consider what constitutes evidence in relation to texts and how to develop a persuasive interpretation. Topics may include Nature's Nation, slavery and its aftermath, individualism and the marketplace, the "New Woman," and the relation between word and image. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum/En 37
Modern European Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

An introduction to literary analysis through a sustained exploration of the rise and aftermath of modernism. What was the modernist revolt of the early 20th century, how did it challenge literary tradition and existing social forms, and to what extent have we inherited a world remade by modernism? While the course will focus on British and Continental literature, writers from other parts of the world whose work closely engages the European tradition may also be considered. Authors may include Flaubert, James, Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Kafka, Borges, Yeats, and Eliot. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum/En 38
Telling Time in American Modernism

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will explore modernist literature's relationship to time. We will identify the methods that modernist narratives use to characterize the experience of lived time, or temporality, such as stream of consciousness, non-linear storytelling, and narrative omissions. We will ask: what challenges does temporal experience pose to clock time and, more broadly, historical time? The course will emphasize the influence of new technologies on modernist representations of time and space, including rural and urban space, and modernism's engagement with changing attitudes regarding race, gender and sexuality. Students will learn about key movements within American modernism, including the Harlem Renaissance, and may opt to analyze modernist literature's relationships to other genres, including music and visual culture. Authors studied will include: Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, and William Faulkner. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Sherazi

Hum/En 39
Contemporary American Fiction

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will engage works of contemporary American fiction, with particular attention paid to experimental narrative strategies and their effects, including non-chronological storytelling, metafictionality, and narrative omissions. Notably, the literature we will read is set during and/or in the aftermath of World War II and/or the Vietnam War. How do the novel's central characters understand their roles in American society before, during, and beyond wartime? We will consider the ways in which social movements, including the civil rights and women's liberation movements, informed these works of fiction and how such literature resonates in our current moment. Authors/texts studied will include John Okada's No-No Boy (1957), Joan Didion's Democracy (1984), and Susan Choi's American Woman (2003).

Instructor: Sherazi

Hum/Pl 40
Right and Wrong

9 units (3-0-6) | first and second terms

This course addresses questions such as: Where do our moral ideas come from? What justifies them? How should they guide our conduct, as individuals and as a society? What kind of person should one aspire to be? Topics the course may deal with include meta-ethical issues (e.g., What makes an action right or wrong? When is one morally responsible for one's actions? How should society be organized?) and normative questions (e.g., Is eating meat morally acceptable? What should we tolerate and why? What are society's obligations toward the poor?). In addition, the psychological and neural substrates of moral judgment and decision making may be explored. The course draws on a variety of sources, including selections from the great works of moral and political philosophy (e.g., Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Hobbes's Leviathan, Kant's Groundings for a Metaphysics of Morals, and Rawls's A Theory of Justice), contemporary discussions of particular moral issues, and the science of moral thought.

Instructor: Hay

Hum/Pl 41
Knowledge and Reality

9 units (3-0-6) | second and third terms

The theme of this course is the scope and limitations of rational belief and knowledge. Students will examine the nature of reality, the nature of the self, the nature of knowledge, and how we learn about the natural world. Students will be introduced to these issues through selections from some of the world's greatest philosophical works, including Descartes's Meditations, Pascal's Pensees Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge, and Kant's Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. A variety of more contemporary readings will also be assigned.

Instructors: Babic, Eberhardt, Hitchcock

Hum/Pl 42
Philosophy and Gender

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course discusses the metaphysics of gender and explores some of its social and political dimensions. The main intellectual approach is that of analytic philosophy, but source materials from other philosophical traditions and intellectual disciplines will be examined. The first part of the course examines various philosophical answers to the question: What makes someone a woman or a man (or both or neither)? The second part illustrates why the metaphysics matters: views about the nature of gender not only affect individuals' own senses of identity, but also have ramifications for politics, anthropology, history, psychology, and the arts. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Cowie

Hum/Pl 43
Meaning In Life

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second terms

Experiencing one's life as meaningful is important for most people. Yet, what is it for a life to be meaningful? This course explores philosophical inquiries into meaning in life, examining such questions as, How does meaning in life relate to moral, epistemic, aesthetic, and hedonic final values in life? What does meaning in life imply regarding the metaphysics of value? What is the relation between meaning and welfare, achievement, and goal-directedness? What sort of activities, from work to leisure, can be sources of meaning in life? Drawing principally on recent work in analytic philosophy, the course will also examine whether scientific approaches, principally neuroscience and psychology, can illuminate the nature of meaning in life and will examine recent nihilistic challenges to meaning in life.

Instructor: Quartz

Hum/Pl 44
Philosophy Through Science Fiction

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will provide a broad introduction to philosophy using examples from science fiction to make abstract philosophical problems vivid. Topics may include: time travel and the reality of the past and future; teleportation and what makes someone the same person over time; fictional tales of extended deception and Cartesian skepticism; futuristic utopias and the question of what make a life good; the moral status of aliens and animals; intelligent robots and the relation between mind and body; parallel universes and the philosophical foundations of quantum physics.

Instructor: Sebens

Hum/F 50
Introduction to Film

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course examines film as a technology, entertainment medium, and commercial art with an emphasis on American and European contexts. Students will acquire the basic vocabulary and techniques of film analysis, with an emphasis on style and structure, and develop an understanding of the historical development of film as both an art form and an industry from 1895 through the twentieth century. Topics covered include actualities and the birth of narrative film, silent film comedy, German expressionism, the Hollywood star system, Italian neo-realism, and the French New Wave.

Instructor: Jurca

Wr 50
Tutorial in Writing

1-3 units to be arranged | By permission only

Individualized tutorial instruction in writing and communication for students who benefit from weekly discussions about their work as writers. Not available for credit toward the humanities-social science requirement.

Instructor: Hall

Mu 51
Understanding Music

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

The Listening Experience I. How to listen to and what to listen for in classical and other musical expressions. Listening, analysis, and discussion of musical forms, genres, and styles. Course is intended for musicians as well as nonmusicians and is strongly recommended as an introduction to other music courses. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Neenan

Mu 56
Jazz History

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course will examine the history of jazz in America from its roots in the unique confluence of racial and ethnic groups in New Orleans around 1900 to the present. The lives and music of major figures such as Robert Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis and others will be explored. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Neenan

Mu 57
Fundamentals of Music Theory and Elementary Ear Training

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Basic vocabulary and concepts of music theory (rhythm and pitch notation, intervals, scales, function of key signatures, etc.); development of aural perception via elementary rhythmic and melodic dictation, and sight-singing exercises.

Instructor: Neenan

Mu 58
Harmony I

9 units (3-0-6), second term

Prerequisites: Mu 57 or entrance exam.

Study of tonal harmony and intermediate music theory; techniques of chord progression, modulation, and melody writing according to common practice; ear training, continued.

Instructor: Neenan

Mu 59
Harmony II

9 units (3-0-6), third term

Prerequisites: Mu 58 or entrance exam.

More advanced concepts of music theory, including chromatic harmony, and 20th-century procedures relating to selected popular music styles; ear training, continued.

Instructor: Neenan

H 60
Reading in History

Units to be determined for the individual by the division | any term

Reading in history and related subjects, done either in connection with the regular courses or independently, but under the direction of members of the department. A brief written report will usually be required. Graded pass/fail. Not available for credit toward humanities-social science requirement.

L 60 ab
German Literature in Translation

9 units (3-0-6)

First term: "Tales of Hollywood" , German exile literature 1933-45; second term: German literature of the 19th century-Biedermeier, young Germany, realism, and naturalism. Not offered 2018-19.

Art 70
Traditions of Japanese Art

9 units (3-0-6), third term

An introduction to the great traditions of Japanese art from prehistory through the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912). Students will examine major achievements of sculpture, painting, temple architecture, and ceramics as representations of each artistic tradition, whether native or adapted from foreign sources. Fundamental problems of style and form will be discussed, but aesthetic analysis will always take place within the conditions created by the culture.

Instructor: Wolfgram

Art 71
Arts of Buddhism

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

An examination of the impact of Buddhism on the arts and cultures of India, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan from its earliest imagery in the 4th century B.C.E. India through various doctrinal transformations to the Zen revival of 18th-century Japan. Select monuments of Buddhist art, including architecture, painting, sculpture, and ritual objects, will serve as focal points for discussions on their aesthetic principles and for explorations into the religious, social, and cultural contexts that underlie their creation. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum 75
Selected Topics in Humanities

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

See registrar's announcement for details.

Instructors: Staff, visitors

Hum 80
Frontiers in the Humanities

1 unit (1-0-0) | third term

Weekly seminar by a member of the Caltech humanities faculty or a visitor to discuss a topic of his or her current research at an introductory level. The course can be used to learn more about different areas of study within the humanities. For those interested in (or who become interested) in pursuing a second option in the humanities, the course will introduce students to the kinds of research carried out by members of the humanities faculty and help them find faculty advisors. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Brown/Dykstra

En 83
History of the English Language

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course introduces students to the historical development of the English language, from its Proto-Indo-European roots through its earliest recorded forms (Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English) up to its current status as a world language. English is a language that is constantly evolving, and students will gain the linguistic skills necessary for analyzing the features of its evolution. We will study the variation and development in the language over time and across regions, including variations in morphology, phonology, syntax, grammar, and vocabulary. We will also examine sociological, political, and literary phenomena that accompany and shape changes in the language. Not offered 2018-19.

En/Wr 84
Writing About Science

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Instruction and practice in writing about science and technology for non-specialist audiences. The course considers how to convey complex technical information in clear, engaging prose in a variety of contexts. Readings in different genres (newspaper journalism, creative non-fiction, and advocacy) raise issues for discussion and serve as models for preliminary writing assignments. A more substantial final project will be on a topic and in the genre of the student's choosing. Includes oral presentation. Satisfies the Institute scientific writing requirement and the option oral communications requirement for humanities majors.

Instructors: Hall, S

En 85
Poetry Writing

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

When William Blake wrote "to see a World in a Grain of Sand," he tapped into poetry's power to model the universe. For instance, once we set up a simile between "world" and "grain of sand", we can test this hypothesis of sameness. How is sand like the world? Where will the model fail? And what might that tell us? Imagery, sensory language, arguments, ideas, and verse form itself can lead poetry toward power and discovery. This pursuit can reach from the page into one's own life. We will work hard together on poems, our own and one another's. Students may apply one term of 85, 86, or 89 to the additional HSS requirements, and all other courses in this series will receive institute credit.

Instructor: Factor

En 86
Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Writing

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

The class is conducted as a writing workshop in the short-story and personal essay/memoir form. Modern literary stories and essays are discussed, as well as the art and craft of writing well, aspects of "the writing life," and the nature of the publishing world today. Students are urged to write fiction or nonfiction that reflects on the nature of life. Humor is welcome, although not genre fiction such as formula romance, horror, thrillers, fantasy, or sci-fi. Students may apply one term of En 85, 86, or 89 to the additional HSS requirements, and all other courses in this series will receive Institute credit.

Instructor: Gerber

E/Art 88
Critical Making

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course examines the concepts and practices of maker culture through hands-on engagement, guest workshops, lectures, reading and discussions on the relations between technology, culture and society. Classes may include digital fabrication, physical computing, and other DIY technologies as well as traditional making. Major writings and practitioners' work may be covered from the study of maker culture, DIY culture, media, critical theory, histories of science, design and art.

Instructor: Mushkin

E/H/Art 89
New Media Arts in the 20th and 21st Centuries

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: none.

This course will examine artists' work with new technology, fabrication methods and media from the late 19th Century to the present. Major artists, exhibitions, and writings of the period will be surveyed. While considering this historical and critical context, students will create their own original new media artworks using technologies and/or fabrication methods they choose. Possible approaches to projects may involve robotics, electronics, computer programming, computer graphics, mechanics and other technologies. Students will be responsible for designing and fabricating their own projects. Topics may include systems in art, the influence of industrialism, digital art, robotics, telematics, media in performance, interactive installation art, and technology in public space. Artists studied may include Eadweard Muybridge, Marcel Duchamp, Vladmir Tatlin, John Cage, Jean Tinguely, Stelarc, Survival Research Laboratories, Lynne Hershman Leeson, Edwardo Kac, Natalie Jeremenjenko, Heath Bunting, Janet Cardiff and others.

Instructor: Mushkin

En 89
Writing the News-Journalistic Writing

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This class explores journalistic writing-writing that pays close attention to fact, accuracy, clarity and precision. It examines various aspects of the craft, such as reporting and interviewing, theme and scene, character and storytelling. It looks closely at how traditional print journalism offers up the news through newspapers-their structure, rules, process and presentation. It looks at new media, its process and principles. It also explores long-form journalistic writing. Students will produce numerous stories and other writing during the class, including profiles, issues, and reviews. Several of these will be offered for publication in The California Tech. There may be visits by professional journalists and off-campus excursions, including an outing to the Los Angeles Times. Students may apply one term of En 85, 86, or 89 to the additional HSS requirements, and all other courses in this series will receive Institute credit.

Instructor: Kipling

Pl 90 ab
Senior Thesis

9 units (1-0-8)

Required of students taking the philosophy option. To be taken in any two consecutive terms of the senior year. Students will research and write a thesis of 10,000-12,000 words on a philosophical topic to be determined in consultation with their thesis adviser. Limited to students taking the philosophy option.

Instructor: Staff

Psy 90
Applied Neuropsychology of Learning

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

An introduction to the neuropsychological mechanisms associated with learning and creativity, and to how different factors and behaviors impede and enhance them. No previous coursework in psychology or neuroscience is required. The course includes labs in which the students will test various hypothesis about their own learning processes. Graded or P/F. Note that this course can be used to fulfill the overall HSS core requirements, but does not count towards the introductory or advanced social science requirement. Offered alternating years. Not offered 2018-2019.

An 97
Undergraduate Research

Units to be arranged | any term

Prerequisites: advanced Anthropology and instructor's permission.

This course offers advanced undergraduates the opportunity to pursue research in Anthropology individually or in a small group. Graded pass/fail.

BEM 97
Undergraduate Research

Units to be arranged | any term

Prerequisites: advanced BEM and instructor's permission.

This course offers advanced undergraduates the opportunity to pursue research on a business problem individually or in a small group. Graded pass/fail.

Ec 97
Undergraduate Research

Units to be arranged | any term

Prerequisites: Advanced economics and instructor's permission.

This course offers advanced undergraduates the opportunity to pursue research in Economics individually or in a small group. Graded pass/fail.

PS 97
Undergraduate Research

Unites to be arranged | any term

Prerequisites: advanced political science and instructor's permission.

This course offers advanced undergraduates the opportunity to pursue research in political science individually or in a small group. Graded pass/fail.

Ec 98 abc
Senior Research and Thesis

Prerequisites: instructor's permission.

Senior economics majors wishing to undertake research may elect a variable number of units, not to exceed 12 in any one term, for such work under the direction of a member of the economics faculty.

En 98
Reading in English

9 units (1-0-8)

Prerequisites: instructor's permission.

An individual program of directed reading in English or American literature, in areas not covered by regular courses. En 98 is intended primarily for English majors and minors. Interested students should confer with an English faculty member and agree upon a topic before registering for the course.

Instructor: Staff

H 98
Reading in History

9 units (1-0-8)

Prerequisites: instructor's permission.

An individual program of directed reading in history, in areas not covered by regular courses.

Instructor: Staff

HPS 98
Reading in History and Philosophy of Science

9 units (1-0-8)

Prerequisites: instructor's permission.

An individual program of directed reading in history and philosophy of science, in areas not covered by regular courses.

Instructor: Staff

Pl 98
Reading in Philosophy

9 units (1-0-8)

Prerequisites: instructor's permission.

An individual program of directed reading in philosophy, in areas not covered by regular courses.

Instructor: Staff

SS 98
Reading in Social Science

Units to be determined for the individual by the department | Elective, in any term

Reading in social science and related subjects, done either in connection with the regular courses or independently of any course, but under the direction of members of the department. A brief written report will usually be required. Graded pass/fail. Not available for credit toward humanities-social science requirement.

En 99 ab
Senior Tutorial for English Majors

9 units (1-0-8)

Students will study research methods and write a research paper. Required of students in the English option.

Instructor: Staff

H 99 abc
Research Tutorial

9 units (1-0-8)

Prerequisites: instructor's permission.

Students will work with the instructor in the preparation of a research paper, which will form the basis of an oral examination.

Instructor: Staff

Pl/Law 99
Causation and Responsibility

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will examine the interrelationships between the concepts of causation, moral responsibility, and legal liability. It will consider legal doctrines of causation and responsibility, as well as attempts within philosophy to articulate these concepts. Questions to be addressed include: Can you be morally or legally responsible for harms that you do not cause? Is it worse to cause some harm, than to unsuccessfully attempt it? Is it justified to punish those who cause harm more severely than those who attempt harm? When, if ever, can the ends justify the means? What constitutes negligence? Is it worse to cause some harm, than to allow it to happen (when you could have prevented it)? Not offered 2018-19.

PS 99 ab
Political Science Research Seminar

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second terms

Prerequisites: political science major; completion of a required PS course for major.

Development and presentation of a major research paper on a topic of interest in political science or political economy. The project will be one that the student has initiated in a political science course he or she has already taken from the PS courses required for the PS option, numbered above 101. This course will be devoted to understanding research in political science, and basic political science methodology. Students will be exposed to current research journals, work to understand a research literature of interest, and work to formulate a research project. Fulfills the Institute scientific writing requirement.

Instructor: Ordeshook

Pl 100
Free Will

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course examines the question of what it means to have free will, whether and why free will is desirable, and whether humans have free will. Topics may include historical discussions of free will from writers such as Aristotle, Boethius, and Hume; what it means for a scientific theory to be deterministic, and whether determinism is compatible with free will; the connection between free will and moral responsibility; the relationship between free will and the notion of the self; beliefs about free will; the psychology of decision making; and the insanity defense in law. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Hitchcock

An 101
Selected Topics in Anthropology

Units to be determined by arrangement with the instructor | offered by announcement

Topics to be determined by instructor.

Instructor: Staff

BEM 101
Selected Topics in Business Economics and Management

Units to be determined by arrangement with the instructor | offered by announcement

Topics determined by instructor.

Instructors: Staff, visiting lecturers

Ec 101
Selected Topics in Economics

Units to be determined by arrangement with the instructor | offered by announcement

Topics to be determined by instructor.

Instructors: Staff, visiting lecturers

ESL 101 ab
Oral Communication and Pronunciation

3 units (3-0-0) | first, second terms

Communication and pronunciation in spoken English. Development of pronunciation, vocabulary, listening comprehension, and accuracy and fluency in speaking. Aspects of American culture will be discussed. The first term is required for all first-year international students designated by the ESL screening process. Passing the class is based on attendance and effort. Graded pass/fail.

Instructor: Staff

PS 101
Selected Topics in Political Science

Units to be determined by arrangement with the instructor | offered by announcement

Instructor: Staff

Psy 101
Selected Topics in Psychology

Units to be determined by arrangement with the instructor | offered by announcement

Instructor: Staff

SS 101
Selected Topics in Social Science

Units to be determined by arrangement with the instructor | offered by announcement

Not available for social science credit unless specifically approved by social science faculty.

Instructors: Staff, visiting lecturers

BEM 102
Introduction to Accounting

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course provides the knowledge and skills necessary for the student to understand financial statements and financial records and to make use of the information for management and investment decisions. Topics include: an overview of financial statements and business decisions; the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement; sales revenue, receivables, and cash; cost of goods sold and inventory; long-lived assets and depreciation, and amortization; current and long-term liabilities; owners' equity; investments in other corporations and an introduction to financial statement analysis.

Instructor: Ewens

CNS/SS/Psy/Bi 102 ab
Brains, Minds, and Society

9 units (3-0-6) | second, third terms

Prerequisites: Bi/CNS/NB/Psy 150 and CNS/Bi/Ph/CS/NB 187, or instructor's permission.

Introduction to the computations made by the brain during economic and social decision making and their neural substrates. First quarter: Reinforcement learning. Unconscious and conscious processing. Emotion. Behavioral economics. Goal-directed and habit learning. Facial processing in social neuroscience. Second quarter: History and mechanisms of reinforcement. Associative learning. Mentalizing and strategic thinking. Neural basis of prosociality. Exploration-exploitation tradeoff. Functions of basal ganglia.

Instructors: O'Doherty/Adolphs, Camerer

En 102
Origins of Science Fiction

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Most histories of science fiction leave out medieval literature entirely, and often much of the early modern era - and some even skip straight forward to begin in the 20th century. But many of the fundamental characteristics of modern science fiction in fact have their origins in much earlier literature. In this course, we will read several classics of modern science fiction alongside medieval and early modern texts, considering how and why science fiction has remained such a powerful imaginative form for so long. Modern readings may include Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, or Octavia Butler's "The Book of Martha." Medieval and early modern readings may include Mandeville's Travels; More's Utopia; medieval bestiaries, lapidaries, and herbiaries; alchemical texts; Kepler's Somnium; or Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World.

Instructor: Klement

HPS 102 ab
Senior Research Seminar

12 units (2-0-10) | Offered in any two consecutive terms, by arrangement with HPS faculty

Under the guidance of an HPS faculty member, students will research and write a focused research paper of 15,000 words (approximately 50 pages). Work in the first term will comprise intensive reading in the relevant literature and/or archival or other primary source research. In the second term, students will draft and revise their paper. Open to seniors in the HPS option and to others by special permission of an HPS faculty member.

Instructor: Staff

L 102 abc
Elementary French

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

The course uses French in Action, a multimedia program, and emphasizes the acquisition of fundamental skills: oral ability, comprehension, writing, and reading. Students are evaluated on the basis of quizzes and compositions (1/3), midterm and final (1/3), and class participation (1/3). The course is mainly designed for students with no previous knowledge of French. Students who have had French in secondary school or college must consult with the instructor before registering.

Instructor: Orcel

Pl 102
Selected Topics in Philosophy

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Prerequisite: Hum/Pl 40 or Hum/Pl 41 or instructor's permission.

BEM 103
Introduction to Finance

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: Ec 11 required; Ma 1 abc recommended (to be familiar with calculus and linear algebra).

Finance, or financial economics, covers two main areas: asset pricing and corporate finance. For asset pricing, a field that studies how investors value securities and make investment decisions, we will discuss topics like prices, risk, and return, portfolio choice, CAPM, market efficiency and bubbles, interest rates and bonds, and futures and options. For corporate finance, a field that studies how firms make financing decisions, we will discuss topics like security issuance, capital structure, and firm investment decisions (the net present value approach, and mergers and acquisitions). In addition, if time permits, we will cover some topics in behavioral finance and household finance such as limits to arbitrage and investor behavior.

Instructor: Jin

En 103
Introduction to Medieval British Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course offers a tour of major (as well as some minor) genres and works written in Britain prior to 1500. Far from a literary "dark age," the Middle Ages fostered dramatic experiments in narrative form, bequeathing to modern literature some of its best-loved genres and texts. We will practice reading in Middle English-the language of Chaucer and his contemporaries-while we concentrate on the following questions: how did these texts circulate among readers? How do they establish their authority? What kinds of historical and cultural currents to they engage? Texts may include the lives of saints, the confessions of sinners, dranma, lyrics, romances, selections from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and Malory's Morte Darthur. Readings will be in Middle and modern English. Not offered 2018-19.

HPS 103
Public Lecture Series

1 unit | first, second, third terms

Student attend four lectures, featuring speakers from outside Caltech, on topics in the history and philosophy of science. Students may choose from a variety of regularly scheduled HPS lectures, including HPS seminars, Harris lectures, and Munro seminars (history or philosophy of science only). Graded on attendance. Not available for credit toward the humanities-social science requirement. Graded pass/fail. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Visiting lecturers

L 103 abc
Intermediate French

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: L 102 abc or equivalent.

The first two terms feature an extensive grammar review and group activities that promote self- expression. Op-Ed articles and a series of literary texts provide a basis for classroom discussion and vocabulary expansion. Several short written compositions are required. The third term is designed to further develop an active command of the language. A variety of 19th- and 20th-century short stories are discussed in class to improve comprehension and oral proficiency. Students are expected to do an oral presentation, to write four short compositions, and a final paper.

Instructors: Merrill, Orcel

BEM 104
Investments

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Ec 11, BEM 103, some familiarity with statistics.

Examines the theory of financial decision making and statistical techniques useful in analyzing financial data. Topics include portfolio selection, equilibrium security pricing, empirical analysis of equity securities, fixed-income markets, market efficiency, and risk management.

Instructor: Roll

En 104
Imagining the Medieval in the Nineteenth Century

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Following the Enlightenment and amidst the Industrial Revolution, the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a surging interest in the literature, lives, art, and architecture of the Middle Ages. In this course, we will explore how authors represented, invoked, and often idealized the medieval past-with its knights, peasants, saints, and monsters-as a way to think through the challenges-social, literary, political, aesthetic-of their own time. We will read several novels, poems, and treatises, including Henry David Thoreau's essay, "Walking;" Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King; and others. Requirements for the course will include weekly response papers and two essays. Not offered 2018-19.

F 104
French Cinema

9 units (3-0-6)

For course description, see L 104. Not offered 2018-19.

L 104
French Cinema

9 units (3-0-6); first term | Offered concurrently with F 104

Prerequisites: L 103 abc or equivalent.

A critical survey of major directors, genres, and movements in French cinema. Particular attention is devoted to the development of film theory and criticism in France and their relation to film production. The course may also focus on problems of transposition from literature to cinema. The course includes screenings of films by Melies, Dulac, Clair, Renoir, Carne, Pagnol, Cocteau, Bresson, Tati, Truffaut, Godard, Resnais, Lelouch, Malle, Pialat, Rohmer, and Varda. Students are expected to write three 5-page critical papers. Conducted in French. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as F 104, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement. Not offered 2018-19.

BEM 105
Options

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Prerequisites: One of the following: Ec 122, Ge/ESE 118, Ma 1/103, Ma 112 a, Ma 112 b, or instructor's permission.

An introduction to option pricing theory and risk management in the discrete-time, binomial tree model, and the continuous-time Black-Scholes-Merton framework. Both the partial differential equations approach and the martingale approach (risk-neutral pricing by expected values) will be developed. The course will cover the basics of Stochastic, Ito Calculus. Since 2015, the course is offered in the flipped format: the students are required to watch lectures online, while problem solving and case and paper presentations are done in class.

Instructor: Cvitanic

Ec 105
Industrial Organization

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Prerequisites: Ec 11 or equivalent.

A study of how technology affects issues of market structure and how market structure affects observable economic outcomes, such as prices, profits, advertising, and research and development expenditures. Emphasis will be on how the analytic tools developed in the course can be used to examine particular industries-especially those related to internet commerce-in detail. Each student is expected to write one substantial paper.

Instructor: Shum

En 105
Old English Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

"Moooe word fraet." Want to learn how to read the riddle that begins with these words? This course will introduce students to Old English: the earliest form of the English language, spoken in England from roughly the years 450 to 1100. In studying the language, we will turn to its diverse and exciting body of literature, including one poem commemorating the brutal defeat by a Viking army and another based on the biblical story of Judith, who tricks the evil king Holofernes into sleeping with her-but not before slicing off his drunken head. We will also read a variety of shorter texts: laws, medical recipes, humorously obscene riddles. Successful completion of the course will give students a richer sense not only of the earliest period of English literature, but also of the English language as it is written and spoken today. No prior experience with Old or Middle English is necessary for this course. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum 105 ab
Topics in French Culture and Literature

9 units (3-0-6)

For course description, see L 105 ab.

L 105 ab
Topics in French Culture and Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Offered concurrently with Hum 105 ab. L 105 a and L 105 b taught in alternate years. Prerequisites: L 103 abc or equivalent. Part a: 20th-century French literature. Part b: Contemporary France. Conducted in French. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as Hum 105 ab, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement.

Instructor: Orcel

Psy/CNS 105 ab
Frontiers in Neuroeconomics

5 units (1.5-0-3.5) | third term

The new discipline of Neuroeconomics seeks to understand the mechanisms underlying human choice behavior, born out of a confluence of approaches derived from Psychology, Neuroscience and Economics. This seminar will consider a variety of emerging themes in this new field. Some of the topics we will address include the neural bases of reward and motivation, the neural representation of utility and risk, neural systems for inter-temporal choice, goals vs habits, and strategic interactions. We will also spend time evaluating various forms of computational and theoretical models that underpin the field such as reinforcement-learning, Bayesian models and race to barrier models. Each week we will focus on key papers and/or book chapters illustrating the relevant concepts.

Instructor: O'Doherty

En 106
Poetic Justice: Histories of Literature and Law

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

How does literature help us to frame questions of equity and fairness? How do writers represent broad concepts like the "common good" or the "body politic," and what does poetry do in the world to shape political action and ideas? This course takes the long historical view on these questions, exploring the overlapping histories of law and literary representation within premodern and contemporary contexts. We will ask how literature thinks about problems of justice, violence, and mercy, and how the courtroom becomes a key site for representing the dramas of social inclusion and exclusion. Possible authors and texts include Dante, Chaucer, Langland, Shakespeare, and Behn. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Jahner

L 106 abc
Elementary Japanese

9 units (4-0-5) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: Section a is required for sections b and c.

Emphasis on oral-aural skills, and understanding of basic grammar. Immediate introduction of the native script-hiragana, katakana-and gradual introduction to 300 to 500 characters.

Instructor: Fujio

BEM 107
Applied Corporate Finance and Investment Banking

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: BEM 103.

This course builds on the concepts introduced in BEM 103 and applies them to current issues related to the financial management, regulation, and governance of both ongoing corporations and new start-up companies. The fundamental theme is valuation. The course discusses how valuation is affected by, among others, the role of directors, regulation of mergers and acquisitions, and management incentives.

Instructor: Cornell

En 107
Medieval Romance

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

The medieval term romanz designated both a language, French, and a genre, romance, dedicated to the adventures of knights and ladies and the villains, monsters, magic, and miles that stood in their way. This course explores key examples from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries, while also examining evolutions in the form. We will consider how romances figured love and desire as well as negotiated questions of law, territory, and cultural difference. Authors and texts may include Chretien de Troyes, Marie de France, Gawain and the Green Knight, Arthurian legends, outlaw tales, and hagiography.

Instructor: Jahner

ESL 107
ESL Graduate Writing Seminar

Noncredit | third term

Strategies for improving academic writing. Emphasis on grammar, word choice, organization, logical connectors, and punctuation. Classroom exercises and editing practice based on student writing samples.

Instructor: Staff

L 107 abc
Intermediate Japanese

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: L 106 abc or equivalent.

Continued instruction and practice in conversation, building up vocabulary, and understanding complex sentence patterns. The emphasis, however, will be on developing reading skills. Recognition of approximately 1,000 characters.

Instructor: Hirai

H 108 a
The Early Middle Ages

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course is designed to introduce students to the formative period of Western medieval history, roughly from the fourth through the tenth centuries. It will emphasize the development of a new civilization from the fusion of Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions, with a focus on the Frankish world. The course focuses on the reading, analysis, and discussion of primary sources. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Brown

H 108 b
The High Middle Ages

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course is designed to introduce students to European history between 1000 and 1400. It will provide a topical as well as chronological examination of the economic, social, political, and religious evolution of western Europe during this period, with a focus on France, Italy, England, and Germany. The course emphasizes the reading, analysis, and discussion of primary sources. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Brown

L 108 abc
Advanced Japanese

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: L 107 abc or equivalent.

Developing overall language skills. Literary and newspaper readings. Technical and scientific translation. Improvement of listening and speaking ability so as to communicate with Japanese people in real situations. Recognition of the 1,850 general-use characters.

Instructor: Hirai

BEM 109
Fixed-Income and Credit-Risk Derivatives

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: BEM 105.

An introduction to the models of interest rates, credit/default risk, and risk management. The focus is on continuous time models used in the practice of Financial Engineering for pricing and hedging fixed income securities. Two main models for credit risk are considered: structural and reduced form/intensity models. Not offered 2018-19.

Ec/Psy 109
Frontiers in Behavioral Economics

9 units (3-0-6), first term

Prerequisites: Ec 11.

Behavioral economics studies agents who are biologically limited in computational ability, willpower and pure self-interest. An important focus is how those limits interact with economic institutions and firm behavior. This reading-driven course will cover new papers that are interesting and draw attention to a topic of importance to economics. Readings will cover lab and field experiments, axiomatic models of behavioral phenomena, and welfare. Each weekly discussion will begin with a 10-minute overview, then an inspection of the paper's scientific machinery, judge whether its conclusions are justified, and speculate about the scope of its generalizability. It should help students as referees and as writers. Assignments are two 1000-word summary-critiques.

Instructor: Camerer

H 109
Medieval Knighthood

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course tells the story of the knight from his beginnings in the early Middle Ages, through his zenith in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, to his decline and transformation in the late medieval and early modern periods. The course treats the knight not simply as a military phenomenon but also as a social, political, religious, and cultural figure who personified many of the elements that set the Middle Ages apart. Not offered 2018-19.

L/F 109
Introduction to French Cinema from Its Beginning to the Present

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will introduce students to the artistic style and the social, historical, and political content of French films, starting with Melies and the Lumiere brothers and working through surrealism and impressionism, 1930s poetic realism, the Occupation, the New Wave, the Cinema du look, and the contemporary cinema. The class will teach students to look at film as a medium with its own techniques and formal principles. Conducted in English.

Instructor: Orcel

BEM 110
Venture Capital

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: BEM 102, 103.

An introduction to the theory and practice of venture capital financing of start-ups. This course covers the underlying economic principles and theoretical models relevant to the venture investment process, as well as the standard practices used by industry and detailed examples. Topics include: The history of VC; VC stages of financing; financial returns to private equity; LBOs and MBOs; people versus ideas; biotech; IPOs; and CEO transitions.

Instructor: Ewens

CNS/SS/Psy 110 ab
Cognitive Neuroscience Tools

9 units (3-0-6) | second, third terms

This course covers tools and statistical methods used in cognitive neuroscience research. Topics vary from year to year depending on the interests of the students. Recent topics include statistical modeling for fMRI data, experimental design for fMRI, and the preprocessing of fMRI data. Not Offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Rangel

En 110
Sinners, Saints, and Sexuality in Premodern Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

What made the difference between saint and sinner in medieval and Renaissance literature? This class takes up this question by focusing on the unruly problems of embodiment. We will read across a wide range of literatures, including early medical texts, saints' lives, poetry and romance, as we examine how earlier periods understood gender and sexual difference. Questions we may consider include the following: how did writers construct the "naturalness" or "unnaturalness" of particular bodies and bodily acts? How did individuals assert control over their own bodies and those of others? In what ways did writing authorize, scrutinize, or police the boundaries of the licit and illicit? Finally, how have modern critics framed these questions? Possible readings include Aristotle, Freud, Chaucer, Margery Kempe, Christine de Pizan, Sidney, Shakespeare.

Instructor: Jahner

HPS/Pl/CS 110
Causation and Explanation

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

An examination of theories of causation and explanation in philosophy and neighboring disciplines. Topics discussed may include probabilistic and counterfactual treatments of causation, the role of statistical evidence and experimentation in causal inference, and the deductive-nomological model of explanation. The treatment of these topics by important figures from the history of philosophy such as Aristotle, Descartes, and Hume may also be considered.

Instructor: Eberhardt

L 110 abc
Elementary Spanish

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Grammar fundamentals and their use in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing Spanish. Exclusively for students with no previous knowledge of Spanish.

Instructors: Arjona, Garcia

BEM 111
Quantitative Risk Management

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: GE/ACM 118, BEM 105, or Ma 112.

An introduction to financial risk management. Concepts of Knightian risk and uncertainty; coherent risk; and commonly used metrics for risk. Techniques for estimating equity risk; volatility; correlation; interest rate risk; and credit risk are described. Discussions of fat-tailed (leptokurtic) risk, scenario analysis, and regime-switching methods provide an introduction to methods for dealing with risk in extreme environments.

Instructor: Winston

H 111
The Medieval Church

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course takes students through the history of the medieval Christian Church in Europe, from its roots in Roman Palestine, through the zenith of its power in the high Middle Ages, to its decline on the eve of the Reformation. The course focuses on the church less as a religion (although it will by necessity deal with some basic theology) than as an institution that came to have an enormous political, social, cultural, and economic impact on medieval life, and for a brief time made Rome once more the mistress of Europe.

Instructor: Brown

BEM 112
International Financial Markets

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: BEM 103 or instructor permission.

The course offers an introduction to international financial markets, their comparative behavior, and their inter-relations. The principal focus will be on assets traded in liquid markets: currencies, equities, bonds, swaps, and other derivatives. Attention will be devoted to (1) institutional arrangements, taxation, and regulation, (2) international arbitrage and parity conditions, (3) valuation, (4) international diversification and portfolio management, (5) derivative instruments, (6) hedging, (7) dynamic investment strategies, (8) other topics of particular current relevance and importance. Not offered 2018-19.

Ec/ACM/CS 112
Bayesian Statistics

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: Ma 3, ACM/EE/IDS 116 or equivalent.

This course provides an introduction to Bayesian Statistics and its applications to data analysis in various fields. Topics include: discrete models, regression models, hierarchical models, model comparison, and MCMC methods. The course combines an introduction to basic theory with a hands-on emphasis on learning how to use these methods in practice so that students can apply them in their own work. Previous familiarity with frequentist statistics is useful but not required.

Instructor: Rangel

H 112
The Vikings

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will take on the Scandinavian seafaring warriors of the 8th-11th centuries as a historical problem. What were the Vikings, where did they come from, and how they did they differ from the Scandinavian and north German pirates and raiders who preceded them? Were they really the horned-helmeted, bloodthirsty barbarians depicted by modern popular media and by many medieval chronicles? What effect did they have in their roughly two centuries of raiding and colonization on the civilizations of medieval and ultimately modern Europe? Not offered 2018-19.

L 112 abc
Intermediate Spanish

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: L 110 abc or equivalent.

Grammar review, vocabulary building, practice in conversation, and introduction to relevant history, literature, and culture. Literary reading and writing are emphasized in the second and third terms. Students who have studied Spanish elsewhere must consult with the instructor before registering.

Instructor: Arjona

En 113 ab
Shakespeare's Career

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

A survey of Shakespeare's career as a dramatist. The first term will study his comedies and histories; the second, his tragedies and tragicomedies. Students will need to read one play per week.

Instructor: Pigman

H 113
The Troubadours

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Our literary tradition in the West goes back to the troubadours, who were the first poets writing in a spoken language (i.e. not Latin) who have had a continuous influence ever since. Who were these poets, and why did what they created have such a decisive impact? Some have claimed that the troubadours invented our basic assumptions about the relations between the self and the world. Certainly they affected ideas about the status of women, since they sang of poets in service to their unattainable ladies. We shall examine the troubadours' interactions with their religious culture, showing how they were affected by Islam and Christianity, and how in turn they helped prepare the early thirteenth century explosion of religious mysticism. Our aim is to assess their contribution to building the basis for modern culture. We shall analyze how these poets developed a unique concept of subjectivity that made it possible for the self to acquire emotional knowledge about the world. In turn, that emotional basis became a foundation for the self that acquires scientific knowledge.

Instructor: Motzkin

H 114
Mysticism and the Self

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Creating the emotional self may have been as significant for the modern project as was formulating an appropriate theory of knowledge. One source for the modern conception of the self lay in the mystical tradition. We shall examine Medieval mysticism, beginning with Saint Francis of Assisi and continuing through the Dominican followers of Meister Eckhardt. We shall also look at the Dutch mystic Jan van Ruusbroec, and then turn our attention to the woman mystics, such as, for example, Marguerite Porete, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe. Finally we shall examine the sixteenth century Spanish mystics, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. Our focus will be on the way these mystics think about themselves in relation to God. We shall try to find out whether the conceptions of the self in this tradition have anything to do with how we think about the self.

Instructor: Motzkin

Hum 114 abc
Spanish and Latin American Literature

9 units (3-0-6)

For course description, see L 114 abc.

L 114 abc
Spanish and Latin American Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Offered concurrently with Hum 114 abc. Prerequisites: L 112 abc or equivalent. First and second terms: study of literary texts from the Spanish American and Spanish traditions, their cultural and historical relevance, covering all periods, with emphasis on contemporary authors. Third term: contemporary topics in literature and/or film of the Hispanic world. Conducted in Spanish. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as Hum 114 abc, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement.

Instructor: Garcia

H 115 abc
British History

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

The political and cultural development of Great Britain from the early modern period to the twentieth century. H 115 a covers the Reformation and the making of a Protestant state (1500-1700). H 115 b examines the Enlightenment and British responses to revolutions in France and America (1700-1830). H 115 c is devoted to the Victorian and Edwardian eras (1830-1918). H 115 a is not a prerequisite for H 115 b; neither it nor H 115 b is a prerequisite for H 115 c. Not offered 2018-19.

Psy 115
Social Psychology

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

The study of how people think about other people and behave toward or around others. Topics include social cognition and emotions (theory of mind and empathy), their development from childhood to old age, impairments in social functions, altruism and cooperation, social groups (ingroup and outgroup), attribution and stereotypes. The class also presents evidence on how these social phenomena are implemented in the human brain and introduces behavioral and neuroscientific methods used in social psychology and social neuroscience.

Instructors: Tusche, Charpentier

BEM 117
Behavioral Finance

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Students are recommended (but not required) to take BEM 103 to become familiar with some basic concepts in finance.

Much of modern financial economics works with models in which agents are fully rational, in that they maximize expected utility and use Bayes' law to update their beliefs. Behavioral finance is a large and active field that develops and studies models in which some agents are less than fully rational. Such models have two building blocks: limits to arbitrage, which makes it difficult for rational traders to undo the dislocations caused by less rational traders; and psychology, which provides guidance for the kinds of deviations from full rationality we might expect to see. We discuss these two topics and consider a number of applications: asset pricing; individual trading behavior; the origin of bubbles; and financial crises.

Instructor: Jin

Ec 117
Matching Markets

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

We will tackle the fundamental question of how to allocate resources and organize exchange in the absence of prices. Examples includes finding a partner, allocating students to schools, and matching donors to patients in the context of organ transplantations. While the main focus will be on formal models, we will also reason about the practical implications of the theory.

Instructor: Pomatto

En 118
Classical Mythology

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Why did the Greeks and Romans remain fascinated with the same stories of gods and demigods for more than a thousand years? On the other hand, how did they adapt those stories to fit new times and places? Starting with the earliest Greek poems and advancing through classical Athens, Hellenistic Alexandria, and Augustan Rome, we consider the history of writing poetry as a history of reading the past; the course also serves as an excellent introduction to ancient literary history at large. Readings may include Homer's 'Odyssey,' Hesiod, Aeschylus, Euripides, Apollonius Rhodius, Ovid, and Seneca.

Instructor: Haugen

En 119
Displacement

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

The literary fascination with people who change places, temporarily or permanently, over a short distance or across the globe, in works dating from our lifetimes and from the recent and the remote past. How readily can such stories be compared, how easy is it to apply traditional categories of literary evaluation, and, in the contemporary world, how have poetry and prose fictions about migration survived alongside other media? 21st-century works will receive considerable attention; other readings may include Virgil, Swift, Flaubert, Mann, Achebe, Nabokov, Didion, Morrison. Not offered 2018-19.

Hum 119
Selected Topics in Humanities

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Instructors: Staff, visitors

HPS/Pl 120
Introduction to Philosophy of Science

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

An introduction to fundamental philosophical problems concerning the nature of science. Topics may include the character of scientific explanation, criteria for the conformation and falsification of scientific theories, the relationship between theory and observation, philosophical accounts of the concept of "law of nature," causation, chance, realism about unobservable entities, the objectivity of science, and issues having to do with the ways in which scientific knowledge changes over time.

Instructor: Babic

PS 120
American Electoral Behavior and Party Strategy

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

A consideration of existing literature on the voting behavior of the citizen, and an examination of theoretical and empirical views of the strategies followed by the parties. Two substantial papers are expected of students.

Instructor: Alvarez

Ec 121 ab
Theory of Value

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second terms

Prerequisites: Ec 11 and Ma 1 b (may be taken concurrently)..

A study of consumer preference, the structure and conduct of markets, factor pricing, measures of economic efficiency, and the interdependence of markets in reaching a general equilibrium.

Instructors: Border, Echenique

En 121
Literature and Its Readers

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

The course will investigate readers who have made adventurous uses of their favorite works of literature, from Greek antiquity through the 20th century. Sometimes those readers count, at least temporarily, as literary critics, as when the philosopher Aristotle made Sophocles' Oedipus the King the central model in his wildly successful essay on the literary form of tragedy. Other readers have been even more experimental, as when Sigmund Freud, studying the same play, made the "Oedipus complex" a meeting point for his theory of psychology, his vision of human societies, and his fascination with literary narrative. It will discuss some basic questions about the phenomenon of literary reading. Does a book have a single meaning? Can it be used rightly or wrongly?

Instructor: Haugen

H 121
American Radicalism

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

The course will cover a number of radical social, political, and artistic movements in 20th-century America. A focus on the first two decades of the century will center around the poet, journalist, and revolutionary John Reed and his circle in Greenwich Village. Topics will include their involvement with artistic experimentation, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Mexican Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the movements for birth control and against American involvement in World War I. Other areas of concentration will be the Great Depression of the '30s, with its leftist political and labor actions, and the freewheeling radicalism of the '60s, including the anti-Vietnam protests, Students for a Democratic Society, and the ethnic struggles for social and political equality. Some reference will be made to the anti-globalization movements of today. Not offered 2018-19.

PS 121
Analyzing Congress

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Introduction to the US Congress with an emphasis on thinking analytically and empirically about the determinants of Congressional behavior. Among the factors examined are the characteristics and incentives of legislators, rules governing the legislative process and internal organization, separation of powers, political parties, Congressional elections, and interest group influence.

Instructor: Hirsch

Ec 122
Econometrics

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Prerequisites: Ma 3.

The application of statistical techniques to the analysis of economic data.

Instructor: Sherman

En 122
Early History of the Novel

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

The realistic novel is a surprising, even experimental moment in the history of fiction. How and why did daily life become a legitimate topic for narrative in the 18th century? The realistic turn clearly attracted new classes of readers, but did it also make the novel a better vehicle for commenting on society at large? Why were the formal conventions of realistic writing so tightly circumscribed? Authors may include Cervantes, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Walpole, Boswell, and Austen. Not offered 2018-19.

HPS/Pl 122
Probability, Evidence, and Belief

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Philosophical and conceptual issues arising from the study of probability theory and how it relates to rationality and belief. Topics discussed may include the foundations and interpretations of probability, arguments for and against the view that we ought to have personal degrees of belief, rational change in beliefs over time, and the relationship between probability and traditional epistemological topics like evidence, justification, and knowledge.

Instructor: Babic

PS 122
Political Representation

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: PS 12.

Why does the U.S. Constitution feature separation of powers and protect states' rights? Should the Senate have a filibuster? When can Congress agree on the best policy for the country (and what does "best" even mean)? This course uses a rigorous set of tools including game theory and social choice to help students understand the effectiveness of American democracy to represent diverse interests. Using the tools, we study U.S. electoral systems, Congress, federalism, and the courts, with a focus on understanding how the country has tried to overcome the challenges of group decision making and the inevitable conflicts that arise between the branches of government and divided political interests. Students will leave the course with a deeper understanding of how rules and strategy shape U.S. democracy.

Instructor: Gibilisco

En 123
The 19th-Century English Novel

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

A survey of the 19th-century novel from Austen through Conrad, with special emphasis upon the Victorians. Major authors may include Austen, Shelley, Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray, Gaskell, Bronte, Collins, Trollope, Stoker, Hardy. Not offered 2018-19.

HPS/Pl 123
Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Prerequisites: Ph 1abc or instructor's permission.

This course will examine the philosophical foundations of the physical theories covered in the freshman physics sequence: classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and special relativity. Topics may include: the goals of physics; what laws of nature are; the unification of physical theories; symmetries; determinism; locality; the reality of fields; the arrow of time.

Instructor: Sebens

PS 123
Regulation and Politics

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: PS 12.

This course will examine the historical origins of several regulatory agencies and trace their development over the past century or so. It will also investigate a number of current issues in regulatory politics, including the great discrepancies that exist in the cost-effectiveness of different regulations, and the advent of more market-based approaches to regulations instead of traditional "command-and-control." Not offered on a pass/fail basis.

Instructor: Kiewiet

Ec/SS 124
Identification Problems in the Social Sciences

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: Ec 122.

Statistical inference in the social sciences is a difficult enterprise whereby we combine data and assumptions to draw conclusions about the world we live in. We then make decisions, for better or for worse, based on these conclusions. A simultaneously intoxicating and sobering thought! Strong assumptions about the data generating process can lead to strong but often less than credible (perhaps incredible?) conclusions about our world. Weaker assumptions can lead to weaker but more credible conclusions. This course explores the range of inferences that are possible when we entertain a range of assumptions about how data is generated. We explore these ideas in the context of a number of applications of interest to social scientists.

Instructor: Sherman

En 124
20th-Century British Fiction

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

A survey of the 20th-century British and Irish novel, from the modernist novel to the postcolonial novel. Major authors may include Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Forster, Lawrence, Orwell, Amis, Lessing, Rushdie. Not offered 2018-19.

H/SS 124
Problems in Historical Demography

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Birth, marriage, and death-the most basic events in people's lives-are inextricably linked to larger economic and social phenomena. An understanding of these basic events can thus shed light on the economic and social world inhabited by people in the past. In this course students will be introduced to the sources and methods used by historical demographers to construct demographic measures for past populations. In addition, the course will cover a broad range of problems in historical demography, including mortality crises, fertility control, infant mortality, and the role of economic and social institutions in demographic change. While the emphasis is on societies in the past, there will be some discussion of modern demographic trends in various parts of the world. Not offered 2018-19.

HPS/Pl 124
Philosophy of Space and Time

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will focus on questions about the nature of space and time, particularly as they arise in connection with physical theory. Topics may include the nature and existence of space, time, and motion; the relationship between geometry and physical space (or space-time); entropy and the direction of time; the nature of simultaneity; and the possibility of time travel.

Instructor: Hitchcock

En 125
British Romantic Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

A selective survey of English writing in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Major authors may include Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Austen. Particular attention will be paid to intellectual and historical contexts and to new understandings of the role of literature in society. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Gilmartin

H 125
Soviet Russia

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Why was the Russian Revolution of 1917 successful? And how did the Soviet system survive nearly 75 years? These questions will be addressed in the wider context of Russian history, with a focus on political, economic, and social institutions in the pre- and post-revolutionary period. Subjects covered include the ideological underpinnings of Bolshevism, Lenin and the Bolshevik coup, the rise of Stalin, collectivization, socialist realism, the command economy, World War II, the Krushchev 'thaw', dissident culture and the arts, popular culture, and Gorbachev's perestroika. A variety of sources will be used, including secondary historical literature, fiction, film, and art.

Instructor: Dennison

HPS/Pl 125
Philosophical Issues in Quantum Physics

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Ph 2b or Ph 12b.

This course will focus on philosophical and foundational questions raised by quantum physics. Questions may include: Is quantum mechanics a local theory? Is the theory deterministic or indeterministic? What is the role of measurement and observation? Does the wave function always obey the Schroedinger equation? Does the wave function give a complete description of the state of a system? Are there parallel universes? How are we to understand quantum probabilities?

Instructor: Sebens

PS 125
Analyzing Political Conflict and Violence

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course examines the causes of and solutions for conflict and violence: Why do wars occur and how do we stop them? We cover topics such as terrorism, ethnic violence, civil wars, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, repression, revolutions, and inter-state wars. We study these phenomena using the rational choice framework and modern tools in data analysis. The goals of the class are to explain conflicts and their terminations as outcomes of strategic decision-making and to understand the empirical strengths and weakness of current explanations.

Instructor: Gibilisco

Psy 125
Reading and Research in Psychology

Same as Psy 25, but for graduate credit

Not available for credit toward humanities-social science requirement. Not offered 2018-19.

En 126
Gothic Fiction

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

The literature of horror, fantasy, and the supernatural, from the late 18th century to the present day. Particular attention will be paid to gothic's shifting cultural imperative, from its origins as a qualified reaction to Enlightenment rationalism, to the contemporary ghost story as an instrument of social and psychological exploration. Issues will include atmosphere and the gothic sense of space; gothic as a popular pathology; and the gendering of gothic narrative. Fiction by Walpole, Shelley, Bronte, Stoker, Poe, Wilde, Angela Carter, and Toni Morrison. Film versions of the gothic may be included. Not offered 2018-19.

An/PS 127
Corruption

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: AN 22 or PS 12.

Corruption taxes economies and individuals in both the developing and the developed world. We will examine what corruption means in different places and contexts, from grand financial scandals to misappropriation of development funds, ethnic patronage, and the theft of elections. How do we measure it? What are its costs and social consequences? What are its correlates? Does freedom of information matter? Students will read across a range of topics, and write an in-depth research paper on one topic. Limited enrollment.

Instructor: Ensminger

En 127
Jane Austen

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course will focus on the major novels of Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. Film and television adaptations will also be considered, and students may have the opportunity to read Austen's unfinished works, as well as related eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British fiction and non-fiction. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Gilmartin

En 128
Modern and Contemporary Irish Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

The development of Irish fiction, poetry, and drama from the early 20th-century Irish literary renaissance, through the impact of modernism, to the Field Day movement and other contemporary developments. Topics may include the impact of political violence and national division upon the literary imagination; the use of folk and fairy-tale traditions; patterns of emigration and literary exile; the challenge of the English language and the relation of Irish writing to British literary tradition; and recent treatments of Irish literature in regional, postcolonial, and global terms. Works by Joyce, Yeats, Synge, Friel, O'Brien, Heaney, Boland, and others.

Instructor: Gilmartin

HPS/Pl 128
Philosophy of Mathematics

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

An examination of conceptual issues that arise in mathematics. The sorts of issues addressed may include the following: Are mathematical objects such as numbers in some sense real? How do we obtain knowledge of the mathematical world? Are proofs the only legitimate source of mathematical knowledge? What is the relationship between mathematics and the world? How is it possible to apply abstract theory to the world? Views of major historical figures such as Plato, Hume, Kant, and Mill, as well as of contemporary writers are examined. The course will also examine philosophical issues that arise in particular areas of mathematics such as probability theory and geometry. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Hitchcock

Ec/SS 129
Economic History of the United States

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: Ec 11.

An examination of certain analytical and quantitative tools and their application to American economic development. Each student is expected to write two substantial papers-drafts will be read by instructor and revised by students. Not offered 2018-19.

En 129
Early Irish Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

In the most recent Star Wars films, the young Jedi Rey finds Luke Skywalker hiding out on a remote island covered with ancient stone huts. These scenes were filmed in a real place: Skellig Micheal, a medieval monastic site off the coast of Ireland. What was the culture that produced this beautiful and strange place like? This course will introduce students to the literature and culture of early Ireland. We will read about a great war waged by the warrior queen Medbh to steal a famous bull; accounts of travel to a mysterious otherworld in the West; the story of the transformation of a king into a bird, cursed to live in tree tops and recite verse for the rest of his life; vicious and entertaining satirical poetry; and intricate poems written by professional poets for their powerful patrons. All texts will be read in English translation, but this course will also include a basic introduction to Irish, the Celtic language still spoken in Ireland, and the island's primary literary and popular language up to the modern era.

Instructor: Klement

Ec/SS 130
Economic History of Europe from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Ec 11.

Employs the theoretical and quantitative techniques of economics to help explore and explain the development of the European cultural area between 1000 and 1980. Topics include the rise of commerce, the demographic transition, the Industrial Revolution, and changes in inequality, international trade, social spending, property rights, and capital markets. Each student is expected to write nine weekly essays and a term paper. Not offered 2018-19.

H 130
Innovative History

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

In recent years some historians have experimented with new and innovative ways of telling the past-on the printed page, using film and video, and on the Internet. The course will focus on these new approaches to historical presentation and knowledge. Students will read, watch, and interact with various examples of these innovative historical works. They will also be exposed to the critiques of traditional historical writing from philosophers, literary critics, and postmodern theorists, which provide intellectual underpinning for experimenting with new forms of history. Not offered 2018-19.

HPS/Pl 130
Philosophy and Biology

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

A selection of philosophical issues arising in the biological sciences. Topics will vary by term. Not offered 2018-19.

L 130 abc
Elementary German

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Grammar fundamentals and their use in aural comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Students who have had German in secondary school or college must consult with the instructor before registering.

Instructor: Aebi

PS 130
Introduction to Social Science Surveys: Methods and Practice

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

In this course, students will learn the basic methodologies behind social science survey analysis: self-completion and interview-assisted surveying, sampling theory, questionnaire design, theories of survey response, and the basic analysis and presentation of survey results will be covered, as well as contemporary research in survey methodology and public opinion analysis. Students will be involved in the active collection and analysis of survey data and the presentation of survey results; students will be required to complete an independent project involving some aspect of survey methodology. Not offered 2018-19.

Psy/CNS 130
Introduction to Human Memory

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

The course offers an overview of experimental findings and theoretical issues in the study of human memory. Topics include iconic and echoic memory, working memory, spatial memory, implicit learning and memory; forgetting: facts vs. skills, memory for faces; retrieval: recall vs. recognition, context-dependent memory, semantic memory, spreading activation models and connectionist networks, memory and emotion, infantile amnesia, memory development, and amnesia. Not offered 2018-19.

CNS/Psy/Bi 131
The Psychology of Learning and Motivation

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course will serve as an introduction to basic concepts, findings, and theory from the field of behavioral psychology, covering areas such as principles of classical conditioning, blocking and conditioned inhibition, models of classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, reinforcement schedules, punishment and avoidance learning. The course will track the development of ideas from the beginnings of behavioral psychology in the early 20th century to contemporary learning theory. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: O'Doherty

En 131
Poe's Afterlife

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course focuses on Edgar Allan Poe and the considerable influence his works have had on other writers. Authors as diverse as Charles Baudelaire, Jules Verne, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, John Barth, and Philip Roth have used Poe's stories as departure points for their own work. We shall begin by reading some of Poe's s classic short stories, including "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," "The Purloined Letter," and others. We shall then explore how and why Poe's stories have been so important for authors, despite the fact that his reputation as a great American writer, unlike Hawthorne's and Melville's, for example, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Not offered 2018-19.

H 131
History of Extinction

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Humans are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction-the first to be caused by human activity. Extinction has been viewed in changing ways over the past 200 years, and this course takes an interdisciplinary approach to learning about the extinction process from a historical as well as a modern perspective. Our focus will be on the extinction of biological entities, but we will also touch on other systems that have disappeared: languages, technologies, habitats, and ways of living. Central to our endeavors will be asking what it means to live in this time of loss: Should we mourn? And if so, how do we mourn for what many or most of us do not see, but only read about? Finally, we will scrutinize what the practical effects of extinction have been, are, and will be. We will also make at least one visit to a natural history museum to view some extinct species behind the scenes.

Instructor: Lewis

H 132
Humanistic Ecology

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Humans' conceptions of nature have changed dramatically over time. Ecological systems influence human culture, politics, law, and many other spheres, and in turn, humans influence those systems. This class introduces students to the field of humanistic ecology-a discipline that looks to a number of cultural, political, historical and economic elements to better understand the role of ecology in a larger sphere outside of its scientific structure and uses. Humanistic ecology is designed to provide context for the study of ecology, and in a fundamental way, focuses on the appropriate role of humanity in its relationship to nature: what is ethical, or not, what is useful, or not, and a variety of other matters that should be considered when taking a fully three-dimensional view of ecological science.

Instructor: Lewis

L 132 abc
Intermediate German

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: L 130 abc or equivalent.

Reading of short stories and plays, grammar review, aural and oral drills and exercises, expansion of vocabulary, and practice in reading, writing, and conversational skills. Second and third terms will emphasize written expression, technical/ scientific translation, and literary readings. Students who have studied German elsewhere must consult with the instructor before registering.

Instructor: Aebi

PS 132
Formal Theories in Political Science

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: PS 12 and Ec/PS 172.

Axiomatic structure and behavioral interpretations of game theoretic and social choice models and models of political processes based on them.

Instructor: Agranov

Psy 133
Computation, Cognition and Consciousness

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course will critically examine the impact of recent advances in computational neuroscience for central problems of philosophy of mind. Beginning with a historical overview of computationalism (the thesis that mental states are computational states), the course will examine how psychological explanation may be understood in computational terms across a variety of levels of description, from sub-neuronal and single neuroncomputation to circuit and network levels. Specific issues will include: whether computation provides unifying psychological principles across species; whether specific mental states such as pain are computational states; digital/analog computation, dynamical systems, and mental representation; whether conscious experience can be understood as a computational process. Not offered 2018-19.

HPS/Pl 134
Current Issues in Philosophical Psychology

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

An in-depth examination of one or more issues at the intersection of contemporary philosophy and the brain and behavioral sciences. Topics may include the development of a theory of mind and self-representation, theories of representation and neural coding, the nature of rationality, the nature and causes of psychopathology, learning and innateness, the modularity of mind. Not offered 2018-19.

An 135
Primate Behavior

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will examine how natural selection has shaped the social organization, life histories, reproductive strategies, social behavior, and cognitive abilities of nonhuman primates. It will review natural and sexual selection, examine the ecological and social pressures that shape primate behavior, and consider the role these principles play in shaping modern human behavior. Not offered 2018-19.

Ec 135
Economics of Uncertainty and Information

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Ec 11.

An analysis of the effects of uncertainty and information on economic decisions. Included among the topics are individual and group decision making under uncertainty, expected utility maximization, insurance, financial markets and speculation, product quality and advertisement, and the value of information.

Instructor: Agranov

En 135
Dickens's London

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Charles Dickens and London have perhaps the most famous relationship of any writer and city in English. In this course, we will investigate both the London Dickens knew, and the portrait of the city that he painted, by reading some of Dickens's great mid-career novels alongside a selection of primary and secondary historical sources. We will think about the gap-or overlap- between history and fiction, the idea of the novelist as alternative historian, and the idea of the novel as historical document. Historical topics covered may include: the development of the Victorian police force; plague and public health; Victorian poverty; colonialism and imperialism; Dickens and his illustrators; Victorian exhibition culture; and marriage and the cult of domesticity, among others. In addition to written work, students should expect to be responsible for making a short research presentation at some point in the term.

Instructor: Gilmore

H 135
War, Conquest, and Empires

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will use historical examples of war and conquest and ask why some periods of history were times of warfare and why certain countries developed a comparative advantage in violence. The examples will come from the history of Europe and Asia, from ancient times up until World War I, and the emphasis throughout will be on the interplay between politics, military technology, and social conditions.

Instructor: Hoffman

HPS/Pl 135
Moral Philosophy and the Brain

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will examine the impact of recent advances in neuroscience on moral philosophy. Topics to be addressed include: the evolution of morality and a naturalistic perspective on ethics; the role of brain imaging in adjudicating between deontological vs. consequentialist perspectives on moral decision-making and judgment; the relation between virtue theory and habit systems in the brain; brain imaging of altruism and its implications for egoism, empathy, and moral motivation; moral agency and free will; the neuroscience of distributive justice; the debate regarding the normative significance of neuroscience for moral philosophy. Not offered 2018-19.

PS 135
Analyzing Legislative Elections

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

The purpose of this course is to understand legislative elections. The course will study, for example, what role money plays in elections and why incumbents do better at the polls. It will also examine how electoral rules impact the behavior both of candidates and voters, and will explore some of the consequences of legislative elections, such as divided government.

Instructor: Katz

Ec 136
Behavioral Decision Theory

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: Ma 3. Ec 121 is recommended as background, but is not a prerequisite.

This course is an intermediate-level class on individual-level theory. The method used posits precise assumptions about general behavior (axioms) then finds equivalent ways to model them in mathematically convenient terms. We will cover both the traditional "rational'' approach, and more recent "behavioral'' models that incorporate psychological principles, in domains of intertemporal choice, random (stochastic) choice, menu choice, and revealed preferences. Students are expected to understand rigorous mathematical proofs. The class also includes serious discussion of the value of experimental evidence motivating new theories.

Instructor: Saito

En 136
The Fiction of Charles Dickens

9 units (3-0-6)

An overview of the Great Inimitable's fiction, concentrating on four texts representative of different phases of his novel-writing career and their relationship to the changing world of Victorian Britain: Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son, Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend. Not offered 2018-19.

H 136
Caltech in the Archives

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This class will introduce students to the methods of archival work in the humanities and social sciences. Over the course of the quarter students will receive an introduction to factors surrounding the collection, organization, and use of various types of archives as a background to several small-scale projects working in an archival collection of their own choosing. The seminar will center around weekly projects and synthetic analytical essays about the archival process and archival discoveries. Students hoping to combine their course work with an archive-based research paper may sign up for a separate independent study and conduct research concurrently, with instructor approval. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Dykstra

HPS/Pl 136
Happiness and the Good Life

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will critically examine the emerging science of happiness and positive psychology, its philosophical assumptions, methodology, and its role in framing social policy and practice. Topics to be addressed include: the relation between happiness as subjective well-being or life satisfaction and philosophical visions of the good life; the relation between happiness and virtue; the causes of happiness and the role of life experience; happiness and economic notions of human welfare, attempts to measure happiness, and the prospect for an economics of happiness; happiness as a brain state and whether brain science can illuminate the nature of happiness; mental illness and psychiatry in light of positive psychology.

Instructor: Quartz

En 137
African American Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course analyzes some of the great works of American literature written by African Americans. This body of writing gives rise to two crucial questions: How does African American literature constitute a literary tradition of its own? How is that tradition inextricable from American literary history? From slave narratives to Toni Morrison's Beloved, from the Harlem Renaissance to Alice Walker, from Ralph Ellison to Walter Mosley, African American literature has examined topics as diverse and important as race relations, class identification, and family life. We shall analyze these texts not only in relation to these cultural issues, but also in terms of their aesthetic and formal contributions. Not offered 2018-19.

H 137
Criminals, Outlaws, and Justice in a Thousand Years of Chinese History

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course explores the shifting boundary between discourses of crime and disobedience over the last millennium or so of Chinese history. It offers fictional, philosophical, political, propagandistic, official, and personal writings on crime and those who commit it as a basis for a wide-ranging series of discussions about when breaking the law is good, when breaking the law is bad, and who gets to decide where the line between a criminal and an outlaw should be drawn.

Instructor: Dykstra

HPS/Pl 137
Minds, Brains, and Selves

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will critically examine the impact of recent advances in psychology, economics, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience on philosophical questions about the nature of the self and self-identity. Topics to be addressed include: the nature of self-awareness; the role of the self in decision-making, reasoning, and planning; the possibility, and accuracy of, self-knowledge; whether the self is unitary, multiple, fragmented, or illusory; self-related emotions; the narrative structure of the self; and how selves are instantiated in neural tissue and whether selves could be instantiated in non-biological substrates (technological singularity). Not offered 2018-19.

Mu 137
History I: Music History to 1750

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

The course traces the history of music from ancient Greece to the time of Bach and Handel. A survey of the contributions by composers such as Machaut, Josquin, and Palestrina will lead to a more in-depth look at the music of Monteverdi, Purcell, Corelli, Vivaldi, and the two most important composers of the high baroque, Bach and Handel. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Neenan

En 138
Twain and His Contemporaries

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will study the divergent theories of realism that arose in the period after the Civil War and before World War I. Authors covered may include Howells, James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett, Jacob Riis, Stephen Crane, and W. E. B. DuBois. Not offered 2018-19.

H 138
From Sage Kings to the CCP: A Primer on Ruler, State and Empire in the History of Chinese Government

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course surveys a large sample of writings on the craft of governance from across the span of Chinese history. It offers students a chance to explore new and old perspectives on leadership, organization, discipline, bureaucracy, justice, and other classic themes of statecraft writings. These materials will be placed in the context of several shifts in and disagreements about the methods of governance in Chinese history so that students may reflect on the dynamic tension between theory, belief, intention, and action in dictating the way that individuals describe the state.

Instructor: Dykstra

HPS/Pl 138
Human Nature and Society

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course will investigate how assumptions about human nature shape political philosophy, social institutions, and social policy. The course will begin with a historical perspective, examining the work of such political philosophers as Plato, Locke, Rousseau, and Marx, along with such psychologists as Freud and Skinner. Against this historical perspective, it will then turn to examine contemporary views on human nature from cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology and explore their potential implications for political philosophy and social policy. Among topics to be discussed will be the nature of human sociality and cooperation; economic systems and assumptions regarding production and consumption; and propaganda, marketing, and manipulation.

Instructor: Quartz

Mu 138
History II: Music History from 1750 to 1850

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Music composed between 1750 and 1850 is among the most popular concert music of today and the most recorded music in the classical tradition. This course will focus on developments in European music during this critical period. An in-depth look at the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven along with the cultural and societal influences that shaped their lives will be the primary focus. Music of composers immediately preceding and following them (the Bach sons, Schubert, Chopin, and others) will also be surveyed.

Instructor: Neenan

En 139
Reading Resistance in Cold War American Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will examine the complexities and contradictions of US Cold War culture. Through literary texts featuring a diverse range of protagonists, we will engage characters who question the status quo, often by exploring the limits and exclusions of national belonging in this period. Though the 1950s saw the rise of McCarthyism and the threat of nuclear war, landmark events in these years also galvanized the civil rights movement and demands for social justice. Course readings in Cold War fiction, drama, and poetry will demonstrate how mainstream social identities conditioned by racial, class, gender and sexual norms, were being challenged and subverted in ways that would intensify and take on collective expression in the 1960s. Authors studied may include: Gwendolyn Brooks, William Demby, Lorraine Hansberry, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Carson McCullers, Mitsuye Yamada, Sylvia Plath, and John Okada. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Sherazi

H 139
Translation Theory and Practice (Chinese Historical Sources Seminar)

9 units (3-0-6)

For course description, see L 139. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Dykstra

L 139
Translation Theory and Practice (Chinese Historical Sources Seminar)

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This seminar will introduce students to the problems and practices of historical translation for academic purposes, with a focus on primary materials from Chinese history. Students will take responsibility for an individual translation project, participate in seminar discussions and collaborative projects to improve the translations being made, and discuss the philosophical and methodological questions at the heart of the practice of translation. Advanced proficiency in written Chinese is required. Students who write analyses (4,000 words) of the sources being translated may enroll in this class as H 139, which satisfies the advanced humanities credit. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Dykstra

Mu 139
History III: Music History from 1850 to the Present

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

From the end of the 19th century to the present day, classical music has undergone the fastest and most radical changes in its history. The course explores these changes, tracing the development of various musical styles, compositional methods, and music technologies while examining acknowledged masterpieces from throughout the period.

Instructor: Neenan

PS/SS 139
Comparative Politics

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: PS 12.

The politics of non-American political systems with an emphasis on their electoral systems and methodologies for assessing their compliance with democratic standards. Students will be expected to develop data sets appropriate to analyzing elections in individual countries and offering an assessment of the pervasiveness of fraud in those elections. The student's grade will be determined by a final written report reporting the methodology and results of their analysis.

Instructor: Lopez-Moctezuma

Ec 140
Economic Progress

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Ec 11; Ec 122 recommended.

This course examines the contemporary literature on economic growth and development from both a theoretical and historical/empirical perspective. Topics include a historical overview of economic progress and the lack thereof; simple capital accumulation models; equilibrium/planning models of accumulation; endogenous growth models; empirical tests of convergence; the measurement and role of technological advancement; and the role of trade, institutions, property rights, human capital, and culture.

Instructor: Hoffman

En 140
African American Expatriate Culture in Postwar Europe

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

In the years following World War II, an unprecedented number of African American writers and artists moved to Paris and Rome, many seeking greater personal liberties and a refuge from racial discrimination at home. As we explore literature, nonfiction, and visual culture created by African Americans in postwar Europe, we will consider: how and why does the postwar creative scene in Paris differ from that of Rome? We will analyze postwar African American expatriate writing's unique and often critical perspectives regarding American society and culture and identify the literary strategies that writers used to address the changing times, promote social justice, and advance new narrative forms, often by crossing traditional boundaries of genre and nation. Authors and artists studied may include: James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Barbara Chase-Riboud, William Demby, Maya Angelou, and Ralph Ellison. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Sherazi

L 140 abc
German Literature

9 units (3-0-6)

Prerequisites: L 132 c or equivalent (two years of college German), or instructor's permission.

Reading and discussion of works by selected 12th-21st-century authors, current events on Internet/TV, exposure to scientific and technical writing, business communication. Viewing and discussion of German-language films. Conducted in German. Not offered 2018-19.

Mu 140
The Great Orchestras: Their History, Repertoire, and Conductors

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This survey course will trace the symphony orchestra from its generally acknowledged beginnings with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Felix Mendelssohn to the present day. Special emphasis will be given to the great orchestras of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, their conductors, and the core orchestral repertoire. Making use of historic audio and video recordings from the twentieth century, along with more recent documentary recordings, students will be exposed to the cultural history of modern Europe and America through the medium of classical music.

Instructor: Neenan

En 141
Contemporary African American Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will engage works of contemporary African American literature, including Ishmael Reed's experimental novel Mumbo Jumbo (1972) and Octavia Butler's time-travel novel Kindred (1979) and selected Afrofuturist short stories. We will read critical essays about temporality and consider these authors' use of temporal strategies, including anachronisms, non-linear narration, historiography, and the creation of speculative worlds. How does the artistic project of narrating the racialized past create possibilities for imagining alternative futures? The course will analyze the role of slavery, trauma, and collective memory in our readings, and it will set these literary texts in conversation with Afrofuturist music and visual culture from the 1970s to the present. Students will have the opportunity to examine archival materials from the Huntington Library related to Octavia Butler's published fiction.

Instructor: Sherazi

PS 141 ab
A History of Budgetary Politics in the United States

9 units (3-0-6) | second, third terms

This class will examine budgetary conflict at key junctures in U.S. history. Topics include the struggle to establish a viable fiscal system in the early days of the Republic, the ante bellum tariff, the "pension politics" of the post-Civil War era, the growth of the American welfare state, and the battle over tax and entitlement reform in the 1980s and 1990s.

Instructor: Kiewiet

An/SS 142
Caltech Undergraduate Culture and Social Organization

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: instructor's permission.

Students in this class will help develop hypotheses, methods, and background information for the design of a new class to be offered in subsequent years, which will seek to pose and empirically test questions related to cultural and social aspects of the Caltech undergraduate experience. Central to this project will be an examination of the theory of social networks and the role they play in the academic and social experience. Other qualitative and quantitative methods for future data gathering will also be designed. Not offered 2018-19.

En 142
Post-1945 American Literature and 'The Death of the Author'

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course will explore the ambiguous status of literature that is published in the wake of an author's death. Should "unfinished" work be edited and published in the late author's name? What if the author left behind no express wishes for her/his unpublished writing or asked that it be destroyed? Alongside such questions, we will analyze posthumously published post-1945 American literature's formal features and its engagements with socio-political transformations related to race, class, gender, and sexuality. Course readings will include Roland Barthes' "The Death of the Author" (1967) and Michel Foucault's "What is an Author?" (1969), as well as posthumously published modernist fiction and poetry by authors including Ralph Ellison, Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.

Instructor: Sherazi

H/L 142
Perspectives on History through Russian Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

The Russian intelligentsia registered the arrival of modern urban society with a highly articulate sensitivity, perhaps because these changes-industrialization, the breakdown of traditional hierarchies and social bonds, the questioning of traditional beliefs-came to Russia so suddenly. This gives their writings a paradigmatic quality; the modern dilemmas that still haunt us are made so eloquently explicit in them that they have served as models for succeeding generations of writers and social critics. This course explores these writings (in English translation) against the background of Russian society, focusing especially on particular works of Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Goncharov, Tolstoy, and Turgenev. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Dennison

Law/PS/H 148 ab
The Supreme Court in U.S. History

9 units (3-0-6) | second, third terms

The development of the Supreme Court, its doctrines, personalities, and role in U.S. history through analyses of selected cases. The first half of the course, which is a prerequisite for the second half but may also be taken by itself, will deal with such topics as federalism, economic regulation, political rights, and free speech. The second half will cover such issues as the rights of the accused, equal protection, and privacy.

Instructor: Kousser

CS/SS/Ec 149
Algorithmic Economics

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course will equip students to engage with active research at the intersection of social and information sciences, including: algorithmic game theory and mechanism design; auctions; matching markets; and learning in games. Not offered 2018-19.

An 150
The Caltech Project

9 units (3-0-6), second term

Prerequisites: An 22 or permission of instructor.

Hands-on immersion in a social scientific research project examining the Caltech undergraduate community. Core data collection includes a social network analysis and a rich array of socio-demographic data from the actual Caltech student body. Students will develop research design skills by writing and revising a 3000 word research proposal modeled on the NSF format. This unique data set allows us to address questions as diverse as: the impact of social networks upon academic performance, the origin and extent of socio-cultural differences across houses, and the diffusion of moral, political, academic, and religious values. Not offered 2018-19.

BEM/Ec 150
Business Analytics

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Prerequisites: GE/ESE 118 or Ec 122, and knowledge of R.

This class teaches how to use very large, cross-media datasets to infer what variables influence choices and trends of economic and business interest. Topics include database management, cleaning and visualization of data, statistical and machine learning methods, natural language processing, social and conventional media, personal sensors and devices, sentiment analysis, and controlled collection of data (including experiments). Grades are based on hands-on data analysis homework assignments and detailed analysis of one dataset. Not offered 2018-19.

Bi/CNS/NB/Psy 150
Introduction to Neuroscience

10 units (4-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Bi 8, 9, or instructor's permission.

General principles of the function and organization of nervous systems, providing both an overview of the subject and a foundation for advanced courses. Topics include the physical and chemical bases for action potentials, synaptic transmission, and sensory transduction; anatomy; development; sensory and motor pathways; memory and learning at the molecular, cellular, and systems level; and the neuroscience of brain diseases.

Instructors: Adolphs, Lester

En 150
Chaos and Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

We tend to think of literary texts as models of a stable poetic order, but modern and postmodern writers conduct increasingly bold experiments to test the contrary. This class explores how writers from the nineteenth century onward draw upon ancient and contemporary concepts of chaos to test out increasingly sophisticated models of disorder though writing. Readings to include Lucretius, Serres, Calvino, Barth, Stoppard, and Kehlmann.

Instructor: Holland

H 150
America in the 1960s

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

The course adopts a thematic approach to the "long 1960s," engaging in depth with the political, social, and cultural trends that shaped the decade. Topics include the African American struggle for civil rights, the "urban crisis," Cold War culture, liberalism at high tide, the Vietnam War, sexual liberation, the New Left and counterculture, as well as the rise of the New Right. Throughout, the course interrogates the privileged role given the 1960s in American history, questioning to what extent the decade marked a departure from the American past or a continuation of long-running trends.

Instructor: Savage

H 151
The Long(er) Civil Rights Movement: From Emancipation to Black Lives Matter

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Taking historian Jacqueline Dowd Hall's call to expand the chronology of the civil rights narrative rather generously, this course explores African American freedom struggles over a period bookended by emancipation and the Black Lives Matter movement. Through an analysis of a wide array of historical sources, the course will also examine topics such as Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Northern and Western segregation, and mass incarceration.

Instructor: Savage

L/Hum 152 ab
French Literature in Translation: Classical and Modern

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

First term: French classical literature of the 17th and 18th centuries; third term: reading and discussion of works by selected 19th- and 20th-century authors. The approach is both historical and critical. Conducted in English, but students may read the French originals. Film versions of the texts studied may be included.

Instructor: Merrill

Ec/PS 160 abc
Laboratory Experiments in the Social Sciences

9 units (3-3-3); first, second, third terms | Section a required for sections b and c

An examination of recent work in laboratory testing in the social sciences with particular reference to work done in social psychology, economics, and political science. Students are required to design and conduct experiments.

Instructor: Plott

En/F 160 ab
Classical Hollywood Cinema

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course introduces students to Hollywood films and filmmaking during the classical period, from the coming of sound through the '50s. Students will develop the techniques and vocabulary appropriate to the distinct formal properties of film. Topics include the rise and collapse of the studio system, technical transformations (sound, color, deep focus), genre (the musical, the melodrama), cultural contexts (the Depression, World War II, the Cold War), audience responses, and the economic history of the film corporations. Terms may be taken independently. Part a covers the period 1927-1940. Part b covers 1941-1960. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Jurca

HPS/H 160
Einstein and His Generation: The History of Modern Physical Sciences

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

An exploration of the most significant scientific developments in the physical sciences, structured around the life and work of Albert Einstein (1879-1955), with particular emphasis on the new theories of radiation, the structure of matter, relativity, and quantum mechanics. While using original Einstein manuscripts, notebooks, scientific papers, and personal correspondence, we shall also study how experimental and theoretical work in the sciences was carried out; scientific education and career patterns; personal, political, cultural, and sociological dimensions of science.

Instructor: Kormos-Buchwald

En/F 161
The New Hollywood

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course examines the post-classical era of Hollywood filmmaking with a focus on the late 1960s through the 1970s, a period of significant formal and thematic experimentation especially in the representation of violence and sexuality. We will study American culture and politics as well as film in this era, as we consider the relation between broader social transformations and the development of new narrative conventions and cinematic techniques. We will pay particular attention to the changing film industry and its influence on this body of work. Films covered may include Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, The Last Picture Show, Jaws, and Taxi Driver.

Instructor: Jurca

H 161
Selected Topics in History

9 units (3-0-6)

Instructors: Staff, visiting lecturers

Pl/CNS/NB/Bi/Psy 161
Consciousness

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: None, but strongly suggest prior background in philosophy of mind and basic neurobiology (such as Bi 150)..

One of the last great challenges to our understanding of the world concerns conscious experience. What exactly is it? How is it caused or constituted? And how does it connect with the rest of our science? This course will cover philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience in a mixture of lectures and in-class discussion. There are no formal pre-requisites, but background in philosophy (equivalent to PI41, PI110) and in neuroscience (equivalent to BI/CNS 150) is strongly recommended and students with such background will be preferentially considered. Limited to 20.

Instructors: Eberhardt, Adolphs

HPS/H 162
Social Studies of Science

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

A comparative, multidisciplinary course that examines the practice of science in a variety of locales, using methods from the history, sociology, and anthropology of scientific knowledge. Topics covered include the high-energy particle laboratory as compared with a biological one; Western as compared to non-Western scientific reasoning; the use of visualization techniques in science from their inception to virtual reality; gender in science; and other topics.

Instructor: Feingold

L/Hum 162
Spanish and Latin American Literature in Translation

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This class is an introduction to the literary masterworks of the Hispanic tradition from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Readings and discussions are in English, but students may read Spanish originals. Not offered 2018-19.

HPS/Pl 165
Selected Topics in Philosophy of Science

9 units (3-0-6)

Instructors: Staff, visiting lecturers

HPS/H 166
Historical Perspectives on the Relations between Science and Religion

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

The course develops a framework for understanding the changing relations between science and religion in Western culture since antiquity. Focus will be on the ways in which the conceptual, personal, and social boundaries between the two domains have been reshaped over the centuries. Questions to be addressed include the extent to which a particular religious doctrine was more or less amenable to scientific work in a given period, how scientific activity carved an autonomous domain, and the roles played by scientific activity in the overall process of secularization.

Instructor: Feingold

HPS/H 167
Experimenting with History/Historic Experiment

9 units (3-0-6)

Prerequisites: Ph 1 abc, and Ph 2 abc (may be taken concurrently).

This course uses a combination of lectures with hands-on laboratory work to bring out the methods, techniques, and knowledge that were involved in building and conducting historical experiments. We will connect our laboratory work with the debates and claims made by the original discoverers, asking such questions as how experimental facts have been connected to theories, how anomalies arise and are handled, and what sorts of conditions make historically for good data. Typical experiments might include investigations of refraction, laws of electric force, interference of polarized light, electromagnetic induction, or resonating circuits and electric waves. We will reconstruct instrumentation and experimental apparatus based on a close reading of original sources. Not offered 2018-19.

L 167 abc
Latin Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: three years of high-school Latin.

Major works of Latin literature, usually one per term. No work will be studied more than once in four years, and students may repeat the course for credit.

Instructor: Pigman

HPS/H 168
History of Electromagnetism and Heat Science

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Ph 1 abc, and Ph 2 abc (may be taken concurrently).

This course covers the development of electromagnetism and thermal science from its beginnings in the early 18th century through the early 20th century. Topics covered include electrostatics, magnetostatics, electrodynamics, Maxwell's field theory, the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics as well as related experimental discoveries.

Instructor: Buchwald

Art 169
The Arts of Dynastic China

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

A survey of the development of Chinese art in which the major achievements in architecture, sculpture, painting, calligraphy, and ceramics will be studied in their cultural contexts from prehistory through the Manchu domination of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Emphasis will be placed on the aesthetic appreciation of Chinese art as molded by the philosophies, religions, and history of China. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Wolfgram

HPS/H 169
Selected Topics in the History of Science and Technology

9 units (3-0-6)

Instructors: Staff, visiting lecturers

HPS/H 170
History of Light from Antiquity to the 20th Century

9 units (3-0-6) | second, third terms

Prerequisites: Ph 1 abc, and Ph 2 abc (may be taken concurrently).

A study of the experimental, mathematical, and theoretical developments concerning light, from the time of Ptolemy in the 2nd century A.D. to the production of electromagnetic optics in the 20th century. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructors: Buchwald, J

L 170 abc
Introduction to Chinese

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

An introductory course in standard Chinese (Mandarin) designed for students with no previous knowledge of the language. The course introduces the fundamentals of Chinese, including pronunciation, grammar, and Chinese characters, emphasizing the four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. By the end of the three-term sequence, students will have acquired knowledge of basic rules of grammar and the ability to converse, read, and write on simple topics of daily life, and will have command of more than 800 Chinese compounds and 700 characters.

Instructor: Wang

HPS/H 171
History of Mechanics from Galileo through Euler

9 units (3-0-6)

Prerequisites: Ph 1 abc, and Ph 2 abc (may be taken concurrently).

This course covers developments in mechanics, as well as related aspects of mathematics and models of nature, from just before the time of Galileo through the middle of the 18th century, which saw the creation of fluid and rotational dynamics in the hands of Euler and others. Not offered 2018-19.

L 171 abc
Elementary Chinese

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: placement exam results or instructor's permission.

A fast-paced course for students who have had prior exposure to the language. Students are introduced to the basic principles of written and oral communication. Emphasis will be placed on consolidating basic grammar, and developing the ability to use the language creatively in talking about oneself and in dealing with daily situations within a Chinese cultural context.

Instructor: Ming

HPS/H 172
History of Mathematics: A Global View with Close-ups

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

The course will provide students with a brief yet adequate survey of the history of mathematics, characterizing the main developments and placing these in their chronological, cultural, and scientific contexts. A more detailed study of a few themes, such as Archimedes' approach to infinite processes, the changing meanings of "analysis" in mathematics, Descartes' analytic geometry, and the axiomatization of geometry c. 1900; students' input in the choice of these themes will be welcomed. Not offered 2018-19.

L 172 abc
Intermediate Chinese

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: L 170 abc or L 171 abc or equivalent.

A course designed to meet the personal interests and future professional goals of students who have had one year of elementary modern Chinese. Students will learn new vocabulary, sentence patterns, idiomatic expressions, and proverbs, as well as insights into Chinese society, culture, and customs.

Instructor: Wang

PS/Ec 172
Game Theory

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Prerequisites: Ec 11 or PS 12.

This course is an introduction to non-cooperative game theory, with applications to political science and economics. It covers the theories of normal-form games and extensive-form games, and introduces solutions concepts that are relevant for situations of complete and incomplete information. The basic theory of repeated games is introduced. Applications are to auction theory and asymmetric information in trading models, cheap talk and voting rules in congress, among many others.

Instructor: Tamuz

L 173 ab
Advanced Chinese

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second terms

Prerequisites: L 172 abc or equivalent.

A course designed to further develop overall language proficiency through extensive reading of selected texts representing a wide variety of styles and genres, including newspapers and magazines, visual materials, and a selection of works of major modern writers. Classes are conducted primarily in Chinese.

Instructor: Ming

Hum 174
Advanced Chinese II: Topics in Chinese Literature

9 units (3-0-6)

For course description, see L 174.

L 174
Advanced Chinese II: Topics in Chinese Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Offered concurrently with Hum 174. Prerequisites: instructor's permission. Reading and discussion of representative Chinese works from the 16th century to the present, including contemporary works from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Conducted in Chinese. Students are expected to examine literary works in light of their sociopolitical and historical contexts. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as Hum 174, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement.

Instructor: Ming

HPS/H 175
Matter, Motion, and Force: Physical Astronomy from Ptolemy to Newton

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

The course will examine how elements of knowledge that evolved against significantly different cultural and religious backgrounds motivated the great scientific revolution of the 17th century. Not offered 2018-19.

L 175
French Conversation

6 units (3-0-3) | third term

Prerequisites: L 102 abc and L 103 abc or equivalent.

Intense training in oral expression, pronunciation, vocabulary, listening comprehension and fluency. The class is designed for students planning to attend Ecole Polytechnique. Discussion materials and guest lectures will focus on technical language to prepare students for their classes in math and science. Taught in French. Enrollment limited to 12. L 175 can be repeated for credit since the content is never the same (different speakers, different articles discussed in class).

Instructor: Orcel

CNS/Bi/SS/Psy/NB 176
Cognition

9 units (4-0-5) | third term

The cornerstone of current progress in understanding the mind, the brain, and the relationship between the two is the study of human and animal cognition. This course will provide an in-depth survey and analysis of behavioral observations, theoretical accounts, computational models, patient data, electrophysiological studies, and brain-imaging results on mental capacities such as attention, memory, emotion, object representation, language, and cognitive development.

Instructor: Shimojo

En 178
Medieval Subjectivities

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

In the seventeenth century, Descartes penned his famous expression "I think therefore I am!" and thus the modern subject was born-or so the simplified story goes. But long before the age of Descartes, the Middle Ages produced an astonishing range of theories and ideas about human selfhood, subjectivity, and interiority. For instance, writing from prison more than one thousand years earlier, Boethius came to realize that what distinguishes a human being from all other creatures is his capacity to "know himself." The meaning of this opaque statement and others like it will command our attention throughout this course, as we explore the diverse, distinctive, and often highly sophisticated notions of subjectivity that developed in the literatures of the Middle Ages. We will take up questions of human agency, free will, identity, self-consciousness, confession, and secrecy as we encounter them in some of the most exciting texts written during the period, including among others) Augustine's Confessions, Prudentius's Psychomachia, the Old English poem The Wanderer, the mystical writings of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich, and Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. Not offered 2018-19.

En 179
Constituting Citizenship before the Fourteenth Amendment

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

What can a slave's narrative teach us about citizenship? How did the new nation identify citizens when its Constitution seemed so silent on the matter? And how did one tailor's pamphlet result in one of most massive restrictions of free speech in U.S. history? Our goal over the semester will be to sketch a story of African American literary production from the latter half of the eighteenth century to the Civil War and to tease out, through this literature, developing understandings of citizenship in the United States. We will read letters, poems, sermons, songs, constitutions and bylaws, short stories, and texts that simply defy easy categorization. We will also spend several sessions becoming familiar with key newspapers and magazines-Freedom's Journal, Frederick Douglass's Paper, The Anglo-African Magazine, Christian Recorder, and The Crisis-to deepen our understanding of the kinds of things people were reading and writing on a regular basis and the kinds of arguments they were making. Writers up for discussion may include: Frederick Douglass, James Madison, Harriet Jacobs, Henry David Thoreau, Sojourner Truth, and David Walker. Not offered 2018-19.

En 180
Special Topics in English

9 units (3-0-6) | See registrar's announcement for details

Instructor: Staff

Ec 181 ab
Convex Analysis and Economic Theory

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second terms

Prerequisites: Ma 1. Ec 121 a is recommended..

Introduction to the use of convex analysis in economic theory. Includes separating hyperplane theorems, continuity and differentiability properties of convex and concave functions, support functions, subdifferentials, Fenchel conjugates, saddle-point theorem, theorems of the alternative, polyhedra, linear programming, and duality in graphs. Introduction to discrete convex analysis and matroids. Emphasis is on the finite-dimensional case, but infinite-dimensional spaces will be discussed. Applications to core convergence, cost and production functions, mathematical finance, decision theory, incentive design, and game theory.

Instructor: Border

En 181
Hardy: The Wessex Novels

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will examine the body of work that the late Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy published under the general title The Wessex Novels, that is, the sequence of works from Far from the Madding Crowd to Jude the Obscure. The six main novels will be read critically to give a sense of the totality of this greatest British regional novelist's achievement. Not offered 2018-19.

En 182
Literature and the First Amendment

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

"Freedom of speech," writes Benjamin Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut (1937), "is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." We will go inside the matrix, focusing on how it has affected the books we read. This is not a course in constitutional law or political philosophy, but an opportunity to examine how American literary culture has intersected with law and politics. We will investigate the ways in which the meanings of "freedom," what it entails, and who is entitled to it have changed over time. Possible topics include the obscenity trials surrounding Allen Ginsberg's Howl and James Joyce's Ulysses, crackdowns on anti-war propagandists, and the legal battle between Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and televangelist and Moral Majority cofounder Jerry Falwell. Not offered 2018-19.

En 183
Victorian Crime Fiction

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

In 19th-century Britain, for the first time in human history, more of a nation's citizens came to live in urban areas than in rural ones. This result of the Industrial Revolution produced many effects, but in the fiction of the period, one of the most striking was an obsession with the problem of crime. Victorian authors filled their novels with murder, prisons, poisonings, prostitution, criminals, and the new figure of the detective; in this class we will look at the social history, publishing developments, and formal dilemmas that underlay such a response. Authors studied may include Dickens, Collins, Braddon, Conan Doyle, Chesterton, and Conrad, among others. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Gilmore

Pl/HPS 183
Bioethics

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

A survey of issues in bioethics. Topics may include: abortion and reproductive rights; euthanasia; cloning; genetic modification of organisms (including humans); moral status of chimeras; stem-cell research; organ transplantation, distribution and sale; cure vs. enhancement; use of human subjects in research; the concept of informed consent; research on non-human animals. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Cowie

H 184
Travel, Mobility, Migration

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

People, objects, and knowledge in the European Age of Revolutions, 1770-1848. The aim of this course is to examine the movement of peoples, cultural artifacts, and the dissemination of different sorts of knowledge, during and after the Revolutionary upheavals and nationalist struggles of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Topics will include nationalism and multi-national communities; political and intellectual exile; imperial ambition, science and knowledge; the effects of warfare on patterns of migration; looting, theft and cultural property. The class will include a number of in-depth case studies, including Italy and South Asia. Not offered 2018-19.

En 185
Dickens and the Dickensian

9 units (3-0-6)

The adjective "Dickensian" makes an almost daily appearance in today's newspapers, magazines, and other media sources. It is used to describe everything from outrageous political scandals, to Bollywood musicals, to multiplot novels. But what does the word really mean? And what part of Charles Dickens's output does it refer to? This class will consider some of Dickens's most famous works alongside a series of contemporary novels, all critically described in "Dickensian" terms. The main concern will be equally with style and form, and 19th-century and present-day circumstances of production (e.g., serialization, mass production, Web publication, etc.). Authors considered (aside from Dickens) may include Richard Price, Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, and Jonathan Franzen. Not offered 2018-19.

H/HPS 185
Angels and Monsters: Cosmology, Anthropology, and the Ends of the World

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course explores late medieval European understandings of the origins, structure, and workings of the cosmos in the realms of theology, physics, astronomy, astrology, magic, and medicine. Attention is given to the position of humans as cultural creatures at the intersection of nature and spirit; as well as to the place of Christian Europeans in relation to non-Christians and other categories of outsiders within and beyond Europe. We will examine the knowledge system that anticipated racializing theories in the West. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Wey-Gomez

Pl 185
Moral Philosophy

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

A survey of topics in moral philosophy. The emphasis will be on metaethical issues, although some normative questions may be addressed. Metaethical topics that may be covered include the fact/value distinction; the nature of right and wrong (consequentialism, deontological theories, rights-based ethical theories, virtue ethics); the status of moral judgments (cognitivism vs. noncognitivism, realism vs. irrealism); morality and psychology; moral relativism; moral skepticism; morality and self-interest; the nature of justice. The implications of these theories for various practical moral problems may also be considered. Not offered 2018-19.

En 186
The Novel of Education

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

What does it mean to be educated? This class will consider this question via a series of novels that take us from secondary school to the university, and from the nineteenth century to the present. Concentrating on British literature, with its compelling tendency to focalize historical anxieties about class, race and social reform through depictions of formal schooling practices, we too will consider these issues as we enter classrooms and eavesdrop on faculty conversations. At the same time, there will be ample scope to engage with more abstract questions about power, pedagogy, and alienation, and we will use our reading's rich stock of schoolyard bullies, boarding school mean girls, struggling scholars and power-mad professors as the concrete anchor for such considerations. Authors read may include Dickens, Bronte, Waugh, Amis, Spark, Lodge, Ishiguro and Zadie Smith. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Gilmore

H/HPS 186
From Plato to Pluto: Maps, Exploration and Culture from Antiquity to the Present

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course covers a broad range of topics in the history of maps and exploration from Antiquity to the present. These topics range from the earliest visualizations of earth and space in the Classical world to contemporary techniques in interplanetary navigation. By way of maps, students will explore various ways in which different cultures have conceptualized and navigated earth and space. While maps emulate the world as perceived by the human eye, they, in fact, comprise a set of observations and perceptions of the relationship between bodies in space and time. Thus, students will study maps, and the exploration they enable, as windows to the cultures that have produced them, not only as scientific and technical artifacts to measure and navigate our world.

Instructors: Wey-Gomez, Ceva

H 187
The Constitution in the Early Republic

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course will trace many of the major constitutional debates that occurred during the first half-century of U.S. History. We will look to the courts, to the legislatures, to Presidents, and to constitutional theorists of the Early Republic to gain insight into how the first generations of Americans understood their Constitution and the governments and rights it recognized. During this formative period, Americans contemplate the location of sovereignty in a federated republic, the rights and privileges of citizenship, and the role of judicial review in a democratic society. Though we will remain firmly entrenched in the period before the Civil War, we will find that many of the issues that created constitutional strife two centuries ago are still relevant to the constitutional questions of today. Not offered 2018-19.

H 188
Origins of the US Civil War

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

The purpose of this course is to investigate the various causes of the US Civil War. Students will be exposed to prevailing interpretations, which rely mostly on national frames of reference when identifying the economic, political, and constitutional causes of the Sectional Crisis and War. Half of the term will be devoted to these themes. Subsequently, we will be spending the second half of the term examining recent scholarship that examines the international factors on the brewing Sectional Crisis, from the ramifications of British Emancipation to the fluctuating global cotton market. During the last week, we will discuss these interpretative differences and identify possible avenues of synthesis. Students will leave the course with a thorough understanding of the causes of the Civil War and an introduction to transnational influences on American historical development. Not offered 2018-19.

HPS/Pl 188
The Evolution of Cognition

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

By many measures, Homo sapiens is the most cognitively sophisticated animal on the planet. Not only does it live in a huge variety of habitats, and not only has it transformed its environment in unprecedented ways, but it is also responsible for such cultural artifacts as language, science, religion, and art. These are achievements that other species, however successful they may be in other respects, have not accomplished. This course investigates the cognitive, behavioral, and environmental bases for humans' surprising cultural dominance of our planet. Possible topics include the evolution of language, the evolution of morality, the evolution of religion, the evolution of cooperation, and the advent of technology, math, science, and the Internet. Contact the instructor to find out what the topic in any given term is. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Cowie

H 189
The Ethics of War

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

We tend to think of violence as a breakdown in social order, but warfare, as an organized form of violence, complicates this perspective. Can waging war and upholding justice go hand in hand? In this seminar, we will explore theories of just war from Classical antiquity through the Middle Ages, paying particular attention to methods of categorizing warfare, women at war, and pacifist critiques. The course will conclude by assessing depictions of medieval warfare in contemporary culture, such as Vikings or Game of Thrones. Readings may include Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, medieval handbooks of chivalry, Aelfric of Eynsham, documents from the trial of Joan of Arc, and Thomas More. Not offered 2018-19.

En 190
Chaucer

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course devotes itself to the writings of the diplomat, courtier, bureaucrat, and poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. Best known for the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer also authored dream visions, lyrics, and philosophical meditations. This course will introduce you to some better-known and lesser-known works in the Chaucerian corpus, while also exploring questions central to the production and circulation of literature in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. What did it mean to "invent" a literary work in late medieval England? How did Chaucer imagine himself as a writer and reader? What are the hallmarks of Chaucerian style, and how did Chaucer become the canonical author he is today? We will read Chaucer's works in their original language, Middle English, working slowly enough to give participants time to familiarize themselves with syntax and spelling. No previous experience with the language is necessary. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: Jahner

En 191
Masterworks of Contemporary Latin American Fiction

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course studies Latin America's most influential authors in the 20th and 21st centuries, with a focus on short stories and novellas produced by the region's avant-garde and "boom" generations. Authors may include Allende, Bombal, Borges, Garcia Marquez, Quiroga, Poniatowska, and Vargas Llosa. All readings and discussions are in English. Not offered 2018-19.

H/L 191
Perspectives on History through German Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Industrialization, economic growth, and democracy came to Germany much later than to England and France, and the forms they took in Germany were filtered through the specific institutional character of Central Europe. German-speaking writers and intellectuals saw these trends from the perspective of indigenous intellectual traditions, and the resulting collisions of values and priorities largely shaped European and American social, political, and literary debates for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This course explores these writings (in English translation) against the historical background of Central European society, focusing on particular works of Goethe, Hoffmann, Heine, Nietzsche, Kafka, Rilke, and Mann.

Instructor: Dennison

H 192
The Crusades

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course will introduce students to the series of religiously motivated European invasions of the Middle and Near East that began at the end of the eleventh century and that led to the creation of Latin Christian principalities in Palestine. Though the crusading movement came to embroil much of Europe itself, the course will focus strictly on the military expeditions to what the Crusaders called the Holy Land, and the history of the Crusader states up to the point of their destruction at the end of the thirteenth century. The course will be guided by the following questions: how did medieval Christianity justify wars of aggression against foreign peoples and religions? What motivated western Europeans to leave their homes and march into a hostile environment, where they often faced impoverishment if not death and where maintaining a Christian presence was a constant struggle? How did they manage to erect stable political entities in alien territory that lasted as long as they did, and how did they have to adapt their own culture to do so? Finally, how did the native peoples of the regions the Crusaders invaded and conquered-Muslim but also Christian and Jewish - perceive the Crusaders? How did the Crusaders' presence affect life in a region whose populations had their own ancient histories and patterns of life? Not offered 2018-19.

En/H 193
Cervantes, Truth or Dare: Don Quixote in an Age of Empire

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Studies Cervantes's literary masterpiece, Don Quixote, with a view to the great upheavals that shaped the early modern world: Renaissance Europe's discovery of America; feudalism's demise and the rise of mass poverty; Reformation and Counter-Reformation; extermination of heretics and war against infidels; and the decline of the Hapsburg dynasty. The hapless protagonist of Don Quixote calls into question the boundaries between sanity and madness, truth and falsehood, history and fiction, objectivity and individual experience. What might be modern, perhaps even revolutionary, in Cervantes's dramatization of the moral and material dilemmas of his time? Conducted in English.

Instructor: Wey-Gomez

H 195
Vesuvius and Pompeii: Geology, Archaeology and Antiquity from the Enlightenment to the Present

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

This course examines Vesuvius and Pompeii and the relations between them from the earliest Pompeian discoveries to the present debate about the fate of the buried city, and the plans to cope with an impending Vesuvian eruption. It analyses the changing debates about the volcano-and its place in earth sciences-the development of archaeological techniques and their discoveries, the relationship between a tourist economy and the region, and the public debates about how to deal with disasters and conservation in a rapidly changing political environment. Not offered 2018-19.

En/H 197
American Literature and the Technologies of Reading

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

This course explores the material forms of American literature from the colonial era through the nineteenth century. We will study how and by whom books and other kinds of texts were produced, and how these forms shaped and were shaped by readers' engagement with them. Possible topics include the history of such printing technologies as presses, types, paper, ink, binding, and illustration; the business of bookmaking and the development of the publishing industry; the rise of literary authorship; the career of Benjamin Franklin; print, politics, and the American Revolution; and manuscript culture. Not offered 2018-19.

SS 200
Selected Topics in Social Science

Units to be determined by arrangement with instructors | offered by announcement

Instructors: Staff, visiting lecturers

H 201
Reading and Research for Graduate Students

Units to be determined for the individual by the division

SS 201 abc
Analytical Foundations of Social Science

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

This course covers the fundamentals of utility theory, game theory, and social choice theory. These basic theories are developed and illustrated with applications to electoral politics, market trading, bargaining, auctions, mechanism design and implementation, legislative and parliamentary voting and organization, public economics, industrial organization, and other topics in economics and political science. Open to Social Science graduate students only.

Instructors: Tamuz, Saito, Pomatto

SS 202 abc
Political Theory

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Course will introduce the student to the central problems of political theory and analysis, beginning with the essential components of the democratic state and proceeding through a variety of empirical topics. These topics will include the analysis of electoral and legislative institutions, legislative agenda processes, voting behavior, comparative political economy, and cooperation and conflict in international politics. The student will be sensitized to the primary empirical problems of the discipline and trained in the most general applications of game theoretic reasoning to political science. Open to Social Science graduate students only.

Instructors: Hirsch, Katz, Alvarez

SS 205 abc
Foundations of Economics

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: Ec 121 ab or instructor's permission.

This is a graduate course in the fundamentals of economics. Topics include comparative statics and maximization techniques, the neoclassical theory of consumption and production, general equilibrium theory and welfare economics, public goods and externalities, the economic consequences of asymmetric information and incomplete markets, and recursive methods with applications to labor economics and financial economics. Open to Social Science graduate students only.

Instructors: Doval, Echenique, Palfrey

SS 209
Behavioral Economics

9 units (3-0-6) | first term

Prerequisites: SS 201 abc or instructor's permission.

This course explores how psychological facts and constructs can be used to inform models of limits on rationality, willpower and greed, to expand the scope of economic analysis. Topics include overconfidence, heuristics for statistical judgment, loss-aversion, hyperbolic discounting, optimal firm behavior when consumers are limited in rationality, behavioral game theory, behavioral finance, neuroeconomic dual-self models, and legal and welfare implications of rationality limits.

Instructor: Camerer

SS 210 abc
Foundations of Political Economy

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: SS 202 c, SS 205 b.

Mathematical theories of individual and social choice applied to problems of welfare economics and political decision making as well as to the construction of political economic processes consistent with stipulated ethical postulates, political platform formulation, the theory of political coalitions, and decision making in political organizations.

Instructors: Gibilisco, Agranov

SS 211 abc
Advanced Economic Theory

9 units (3-0-6); first, second, third terms | May be repeated for credit

Advanced work in a specialized area of economic theory, with topics varying from year to year according to the interests of students.

Instructors: Saito, Doval, Echenique/Pomatto

SS 213 abc
Financial Economics

9 units (3-2-4) | first, second, third terms

First term: asset pricing theory, statistical tests on historical data and evidence from financial markets experiments. Second term: financial econometrics, with emphasis on applications to risk management. Third term: general equilibrium foundations of asset and option pricing theory. Not offered 2018-19.

SS/Ma 214
Mathematical Finance

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Prerequisites: Good knowledge of probability theory and differential equations. Some familiarity with analysis and measure theory is helpful.

A course on pricing financial derivatives, risk management, and optimal portfolio selection using mathematical models. Students will be introduced to methods of Stochastic, Ito Calculus for models driven by Brownian motion. Models with jumps will also be discussed.

Instructor: Cvitanic

SS 215
Asset Pricing Theory

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Students are recommended (but not required) to take SS/Ma 214.

This course is designed to get students familiar with modern research in asset pricing theory. It covers topics like arbitrage and pricing, mean-variance single period problem, arbitrage pricing theory, basics of continuous-time finance, valuation of assets in continuous-time and risk-neutral pricing, term structure results and considerations, intertemporal consumption-based asset pricing models, information economics, and some recent development in intermediary-based asset pricing models and behavioral asset pricing models.

Instructor: Jin

SS 216
Interdisciplinary Studies in Law and Social Policy

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

A policy problem or problems involving the legal system will be studied, using concepts from at least one social science discipline. Each offering will be taught by a law professor, alone or in conjunction with a member of the social science faculty. The topic will differ from term to term, so the course may be taken more than once. Selected undergraduates may enroll in this course with the permission of the instructor. Not offered 2018-19.

SS 217
Advanced Behavioral Finance

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

In this class, we discuss frontier research in behavioral finance, a field that builds models that are psychologically more realistic than their predecessors in order to explain empirical facts in economics and finance. The course covers a wide range of research papers, both theoretical and empirical, so that by the end of the course, students become knowledgeable about market inefficiencies and some trading strategies implemented by hedge funds, psychology and human irrationalities, investor trading behavior, and basic tools that help people to make better investment and saving decisions. The class can be useful for graduate students from all divisions with strong analytical skills and some basic knowledge about economics and finance.

Instructor: Jin

SS 218
Neuroscience Applications to Economics and Politics

9 units (3-0-6) | second term

Topics in behavioral, affective, and social neuroscience that inform how individuals make economic decisions. Applications of neuroscience ideas and methods to understanding choice under risk and uncertainty, temporal discounting and self-control, advertisement and preference formation, habit, addiction, and judgment bias. Not offered 2018-19.

SS 222 abc
Econometrics

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Introduction to the use of multivariate and nonlinear methods in the social sciences. Open to Social Science graduate students only.

Instructors: Shum, Xin, Sherman

SS 223 abc
Advanced Topics in Econometric Theory

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Prerequisites: SS 222 abc; may be repeated for credit.

A course in quantitative methods for second- and third-year social science graduate students.

Instructors: Sherman, Shum, Xin

SS 224
Social Science Data

9 units (3-3-3)

This course provides broad coverage of empirical methods in the social sciences. This includes both methods of data collection and practical aspects of data analysis, as well as related issues of survey design, experimental design, techniques for handling large datasets, and issues specific to the collection and analysis of field and historical data. This course also provides students with hands-on experience with data. Not offered 2018-19.

SS 225
Experimetrics

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

This course explores the interaction of experimental design and econometric inference in the laboratory approach to economic questions. The course critically evaluates existing experimental studies to highlight this interaction and motivate consideration of inferential strategies early in an experiments design. Methodological topics may include testing theories in two-by-two designs, power and optimal design, classifying subjects into canonical types, testing based on elicited preferences and beliefs, and challenges introduced by communication and dynamics in economic experiments. Not offered 2018-19.

SS 228 abc
Applied Empirical Methods in the Social Sciences

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

Course covers methods used in contemporary applied empirical work in a variety of social sciences. Topics covered include (a) maximum likelihood, Bayesian estimation, management and computation of large datasets, (b) reduced form methods like instrumental variables (IV), difference-in-differences (DID), natural experiments, event study and panel data methods, and (c) structural estimation. Emphasis is on the application of tools to substantive social science problems rather than statistical theory, in areas including political science, political economy, corporate finance, and accounting. Application focus will vary with instructor interests.

Instructors: Katz, Ewens, Lopez-Moctezuma

SS 229 abc
Theoretical and Quantitative Dimensions of Historical Development

9 units (3-0-6); first, second terms | May be repeated for credit

Introduction to modern quantitative history. The tools of economic and political theory applied to problems of economic, social, and political development in a historical context. Second and third terms will be graded together. A pass/fail will be assigned in the second term and then changed to the appropriate letter grade at the end of the third term.

Instructors: Rosenthal, Hoffman

SS 231 abc
American Politics

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms

A three-term course in American politics and political behavior. While drawing from con temporary materials, the course will emphasize the historical background of American political institutions.

Instructors: Alvarez, Hirsch

SS 232 abc
Historical and Comparative Perspectives in Political Analysis

9 units (3-0-6) | second, third terms

Provides a knowledge and understanding of developments in both the American past and in other parts of the world. Not offered 2018-19.

SS 240
Techniques of Policy Research

9 units (3-0-6)

Prerequisites: SS 205 ab.

The application of social science theory and methods to the formulation and evaluation of public policy. Not offered 2018-19.

SS/CS 241
Topics in Algorithmic Economics

9 units (3-0-6)

Prerequisites: SS/CS 149.

This is a graduate-level seminar covering recent topics at the intersection of computer science and economics. Topics will vary, but may include, e.g., dynamics in games, algorithmic mechanism design, and prediction markets. Not offered 2018-19.

Instructor: EAS and HSS faculty

CNS/SS 251
Human Brain Mapping: Theory and Practice

9 units (2-1-6) | second term

A course in functional brain imaging. An overview of contemporary brain imaging techniques, usefulness of brain imaging compared to other techniques available to the modern neuroscientist. Review of what is known about the physical and biological bases of the signals being measured. Design and implementation of a brain imaging experiment and analysis of data (with a particular emphasis on fMRI).

Instructor: O'Doherty

SS/Psy/Bi/CNS 255
Topics in Emotion and Social Cognition

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Prerequisites: Bi/CNS/NB/Psy 150 or instructor's permission.

Emotions are at the forefront of most human endeavors. Emotions aid us in decision-making (gut feelings), help us remember, torment us, yet have ultimately helped us to survive. Over the past few decades, we have begun to characterize the neural systems that extend from primitive affective response such as fight or flight to the complex emotions experienced by humans including guilt, envy, empathy and social pain. This course will begin with an in-depth examination of the neurobiological systems that underlie negative and positive emotions and move onto weekly discussions, based on assigned journal articles that highlight both rudimentary and complex emotions. The final weeks will be devoted to exploring how the neurobiological systems are disrupted in affective disorders including anxiety, aggression and psychopathy. In addition to these discussions and readings, each student will be required to write a review paper or produce a short movie on a topic related to one of the emotions discussed in these seminars and its underlying neural mechanisms.

Instructor: Mobbs

SS 260
Experimental Methods of Political Economy

9 units (3-3-3) | first, second, third terms

Survey of laboratory experimental research related to the broad field of political economy. Topics: the behavior of markets, organizations, committee processes, and election processes. Emphasis on experimental methods and techniques. Students will design and conduct experiments. May be repeated for credit with instructor's permission.

Instructor: Plott

SS 281
Graduate Social Science Writing Seminar

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Only open to advanced graduate students in social science. How can social scientists write in a style that makes someone actually want to read their papers? This seminar combines writing exercises with help in planning a professional social science paper and with extensive comments on drafts.

Instructor: Rosenthal

SS 282 abc
Graduate Proseminar in Social Science

3 units (2-0-1) | first, second, third terms

Course for graduate students in social sciences. Students present their research and lead discussion of material relevant to their research program. Open to Social Science Graduate Students only.

Instructors: Doval, Gibilisco

SS/Psy 283 abc
Graduate Proseminar in Social and Decision Neuroscience

3 units (1.5-0-1.5) | first, second, and third terms.

The course involves student presentations of their research, reading and discussion of recent research in social and decision neuroscience, and development of professional skill such as scientific writing and speaking, research ethics, writing grants and peer review. This course is only open to graduate students in the Social and Decision Neuroscience, Computational and Neural Systems and Social Science PhD programs.

Instructor: Rangel

SS/Psy/CNS 285
Topics in Social, Cognitive, and Decision Sciences

3 units (3-0-0) | second term

Select faculty will present their research background, methods, and a sampling of current questions/studies. Background readings and pdf of presentation will be provided.

Instructors: Adolphs, Staff

SS 299
Writing

6 units (3-0-3) | summer term

This course is designed for students to improve their ability for written expression in the English language. This course is only open to graduate students in the Social Decision Neuroscience and Social Science Ph.D. programs.

Instructor: Staff

SS 300
Research in Social Science

Units to be arranged

HSS Courses (2018-19)

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